A ( XHIIRSE OF 



PRACTICAL TALKS 


to the WORKING MEN of 


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THE El.) I SON ELKCTfclC LIGHT CO. OF PHILADELPHIA 


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A COURSE 


OF 


THIRTEEN PRACTICAL TALKS 


TO THE 


WORKING MEN 


OF THE 


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JUL 27 189$ 

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EDISON ELECTRIC LIGHT COMPANY 


OF PHILADELPHIA 


Copyrighted 1895, 

By The Edison Electric Light Co. of Philadelphia. 


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PRESS OF 

E. F.GREATHEAD 

909 SANSOM ST. 


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CONTENTS. 


Page 

Preface,.5 

“Introductory Remarks. ” By Prof. Wm. D. Marks, ... 9 

‘‘Boilers of the Edison Electric Light Company of Philadelphia.” By 

Mr. Thos. O. Organ,.17 

“Machine Work and Machinery Erection.” By Mr. A. Falkenau, 25 

“Steam Machinery and Piping.” By Mr. H. C. Phillippi, . . 34 

“Incandescent Lamps and their Manufacture. ” By Mr. John W. 

Howell,.42 

“Electrical Distribution.” By Mr. Wm. C. L. Eglin, ... 48 

“Boiler Feed Apparatus ” By Mr. Wm. M. Barr, .... 57 

“Underground Conduits and Conductors ” By Mr. Joseph D. Israel, 71 

“Heating of Wires.” By Mr. A. E. Kennedy, .... 85 

“Electrical Meters.” By Mr. H. P. Edson, . . . » . .89 

“Dynamos and Motors.” By Mr. C Billberg, .... 95 

‘‘Finances of Electric Lighting.” By Mr. Walter H. Johnson, . 104 

“History of the Edison Electric Light Company of Philadelphia. ’ ’ By 

Prof. Wm. D. Marks, . . . . . . .116 











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PREFACE 


HE following thirteen lectures on Electrical and Mechanical topics, 



are the result of a united effort on the part of the Board of Control 
of the Edison Electric Light Company of Philadelphia, to instruct and 
interest the subordinate employes of their Company, and while very 
elementary in character are of great practical worth to any person 
desiring to become conversant with modern electric lighting. 

It is to be hoped that the reader will realize the unselfish effort of 
these gentlemen to open the way for him, and once having the opening, 
will go on in self education in the arts, based on real knowledge and 
conducing to the advancement of civilization. 

Philadelphia, * W. L). M. 


July, LS95. 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS, 


BY 

PROF. WM. D. MARKS, 

President. 


I will have to begin my talk with you by an apology. Not for my¬ 
self at all, because I am growing quite old and am accustomed to public 
speaking. I have been a lecturer a great deal of my life. That does not 
worry me ; but what does worry me is, that one cannot manage to do any¬ 
thing with Mr. Edison: 

The Board of Control came to me. I told them that I knew Edison 
and thought I could have some influence with him. I said I would do 
the best I could. Edison has never delivered a lecture in his life. After 
a great deal of thought, I wrote him a long letter, I took a great deal of 
pains with it, and felt very much impressed by my own letter. I 
thought he must come after that, but within a week afterwards I received 
the following letter from Mr. Edison : 

Friend Marks : 

In reply to your favor of the 12th instant, I beg to state that until 
I get a chance to get a little sleep without having my boots on, it will 
be impossible for me to come. My Ogden scheme keeps me on the 
jump. When that is over, I am coming to see you. 

Yours truly, 

THOMAS A. EDISON. 

There is no use trying diplomacy on a man like that. We failed to 
get him, and to help the Board out I agreed to tell you what I know of 
him. As he is not here in person, I will call your attention to a bust of 
him here, which I know to be a remarkably good one. It was made dur¬ 
ing the progress of the Electrical Exhibition, by a sculptor who has since 
committed suicide, having all of the faults of a man whose genius is all 
in one direction. But this portrait is admirable. It is Edison over again. 


9 



In addition to that, some fifteen or twenty months ago, Mr. Edison 
compromised with me and agreed not to come, but to deliver an address 
for me to the Young Men’s Christian Association—he would talk through 
a cylinder. This I asked him for a month before the time, and a day be¬ 
fore the time I asked Mr. Johnson, as I did not want to disappoint the 
audience, if he would kindly go over to Mr. Edison’s and remind him of 
his promise. We then discovered that Edison had disappeared somewhere 
in New Jersey—nobody knew exactly where—and I asked Mr. Johnson, 
if necessary, to get a special train and go after Mr. Edison. It did not 
make any difference about the expense. We had promised the cylinder 
and we were going to have it there if it cost a special train. He did not 
have to do that. He succeed in getting the cylinder—one that tells a 
story. It does not give an address as I had hope for. It tells a story of 
a man who went out to California. He was afflicted with a liver disease. 
He searched up and down the coast until he found a spring which he 
thought was beneficial to him. He drank of the water and was quickly 
cured ; and, being a New England man, he immediately purchased the 
spring and set up a water cure. And, finding the water continued to 
agree with him he continued to drink it, and after many years of success 
as a landlord, he finally died, but the effect of the water was so strong 
that they were obliged to take out his liver and kill it with a club after he 
was dead. Now, in addition to this, I am going to ask Mr. Johnson to 
put Mr. Edison on the cylinder. He is a man who has a good many dif¬ 
ferent things to talk about. You will notice that, after he has finished 
this story, he forgets himself—talks to somebody else—then recollects 
himself and says, “Yours truly, Edison and I think, immediately at the 
beginning, you will hear in a faint voice, intended for me or some work¬ 
man “Give this to Johnson” meaning that this particular cylinder had to 
pass over to Mr. Johnson. I will sit down until Mr. Johnson makes Mr. 
Edison’s speech. 

Mr. Edison, through the cylinder, said : 

You ask me to send you a phonographic cylinder for your lecture, 
and to say a few words to the audience. I do not think the audience 
would take any interest in any dry scientific talk, but perhaps they might be 
interested in alittle story that a man sent me on a phonographic cylinder the 
other day from San Francisco. In the year 1873, a man from Massachu¬ 
setts came to California with a chronic liver complaint. He searched all 
over the coast for a mineral spring to cure the disease , and, at last, down 
in the San Juaquin valley he found a spring the qualities of the water of 
which cured him almost instantly. He thereupon started a sanitarium, 
and people from all over the world came and were cured. Last year this 
man died, and so powerful had been the action of the waters that they 
had to take his liver out and kill it with a club. 

Yours truly, EDISON. 

In talking about Edison, I am not going to tell you the stories that 
you probably can find in any scientific work or magazine published late¬ 
ly. You can get dates and early incidents from any number of magazines. 
Cassier’s magazine, published in New York, goes into his life in great 
detail. I will tell you, though, that, on the eleventh of next February, 
Mr. Edison will be 48 years old. 


IO 


His early life as a child was the pathetic life that every little lad ex¬ 
periences who has a father that is either incompetent or too idle to attend 
to his education. He was knocked about as a newsboy, and train boy earn¬ 
ing his living as he could. If he had any prominent peculiarity it was the 
fact that he seemed to be dull. Whenever he was not actively engaged in 
working for a living, he had a habit of going into reveries, and sometimes 
you would have to speak to him three or four times before he would ap¬ 
parently hear you. 

He spent whatever little money he could get in experimentation. He 
and a boy friend, while endeavoring to learn telegraphy between them¬ 
selves, established a line between two neighboring houses. There were two 
high fences between the two houses where they established their line, 
and Edison says that very frequently—in fact almost always—after one 
had sent a message to the other, he had to climb over those two fences 
and tell him what the message was. However, it was an indication of 
his desire to learn, and by saving the life of a little child, the daughter 
of a station agent, he obtained lessons from this station agent who was 
also telegraph operator. He learned then, in what might be called a 
methodical way, how to send messages over the telegraph wires. 

He had another peculiarity besides that of falling into brown studies. 
He made up his mind that he was going to be a learned man and a well 
read one. When he was stationed in Detroit, he had access to the Detroit 
Free Library, and having no guide he determined that he would read the 
library through. He started in atone end of the library and read fifteen 
feet in length by measurement along one shelf before a kind hearted 
librarian found out what he was up to, and suggested to him that that was 
not the way to become a learned man. Through his kindness, he was 
put upon a course of history and classical reading. A few of the books 
that he read while he was yet quite a child, I have mentioned here in this 
memorandum. They do not bear on electricity, but they are worthy of 
reading by anyone. He read Hume’s History of England, Gibbon’s His¬ 
tory of the Reformation, Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Em¬ 
pire and Estry’s History of the World. Along with these he took in 
anything of a chemical or scientific nature to which he could gain access. 

He soon developed great skill as a telegraph operator, and as a result, 
got pay adequate to support him and to enable him to carry on some of 
his experiments. 

There is a gentleman who was in this city not long ago—if I remem¬ 
ber rightly his name was Mr. Adams—who told me that at one time in 
Edison’s career he missed him for a while, and he went and hunted him 
up. He was then receiving good pay as one of the best of telegraph 
operators. He discovered him in a garret, more than half chemical lab¬ 
oratory, sick, unable to move, half-starved, and without money, for he 
had spent it all for his chemicals and apparatus. He nursed him and 
brought him back to health—one of the fortunate incidents of life on 
which all of us are dependent. 

Going on in his experiments, he soon undertook to improve the in¬ 
struments of telegraphy. He invented the quadruplex. 


A friend of mine, going over to his laboratory, while I was professor 
in the University of Pennsylvania, at the time when Edison was receiving 
royalties from the Western Union for his quadruplex instruments and 
other improvements in the art he was then practicing, told me that 
Edison opened a pocket-book which he had in his pocket and showed 
him 150 $1,000 bills which he had just received from the Western Union 
Company as a royalty for a portion of the year—I do not recollect what 
portion, but at any rate he was able then to experiment all he pleased. 

Shortly after that, he established a shop in Newark. He had some 
forty or fifty men working for him. It was always an ambition on his 
part, to create an industry which would make him a leader of industry 
and an employer of a large number of men. He got up telegraph instru¬ 
ments and other pieces of electrical apparatus based on his inventions, and 
at the end of a year his scientific bookkeeper showed him a very large 
profit on the business. Edison is generous , he was feeling very good over it; 
and he immediately issued invitations to everybody in the shop for a grand 
dinner at the Grand Hotel of Newark. He thought he had made some 
$30,000 or $40,000. The bookkeeper said he had. Everything was pre¬ 
pared for the dinner, when it occurred to him that he had better find out 
what bank balance he had, and he found to his amazement that his bal¬ 
ance was exhausted. He had made $30,000 or $40,000, but he had spent 
it on something else. So, he withdrew his invitations to the dinner. 

Of late years he has been in the pay of various corporations—such cor¬ 
porations as the Western Union, the General Electric and some others. 
They have agreed to pay him salaries ranging from $10,000 to $20,000, 
$30,000 and $40,000 a year. He to go on with his experimentation and 
they to have the first opportunity, at a fair valuation, to purchase what¬ 
ever he might invent. They simply pay this salary for the purpose of 
being able to get hold of his inventions first. They have so much confi¬ 
dence in the value of the man’s inventions and inventive ability. 

Now taking the man up himself—I might say gossiping about him 
with you—he is regarded by many men as a self-contained, selfish man. 
In that respect they are wrong. He becomes so much wrapped up in the 
thing that is in his mind and that he is trying to carry out, that the men 
around him are as shadows to him. They come and go and he hardly 
sees them. He thinks of nothing but what he is doing and the man that 
comes to him or goes away from him has no more effect on him than the 
machine turning around in front of him, and of course this indifference 
does create in the minds of a good many men an idea of selfishness, but 
when he conies out of these moods, he is the very prince of good fellows, 
both in his ways and in his generosity. 

A great many other people think that Edison must be a crank. All 
of you have met inventors—a man with something that he has invented— 
it is usually one thing—he cannot think of anything else or talk of any¬ 
thing else but the thing he has invented, and you call him a crank, and 
you are right. That is what a crank is. But Edison is not a crank. If 
Edison had been a general, he would have been a greater general than 
Grant or Lee ; if a financier he would have been a greater one than 


12 


Commodore Vanderbilt or Jay Gould ; but destiny made him an inventor, 
and he is, as we know, the greatest inventor known in the history of the 
World—a man whose intuition seems almost divine in its depth. 

To put him before you as nearly as I can, I will say that his head is 
of more than the usual size. It is not only very long from front to back, 
but it is also very broad behind the ears and very broad across the fore¬ 
head. It is not a very high forehead but a very broad one indeed. 

If you will pardon me for speaking of myself, I have usually to wear 
a hat measuring 7^ in some direction—some hat maker’s measurement— 
and wherever I go I throw that hat down and do not care how many 
hats there are lying around, for I feel certain nobody is going to take my 
hat. It goes down over their ears and they soon take it off and get 
another. One day I attended a directors’ meeting in New York City, and 
in coming away I picked up a hat which I thoughtiwould go on my head. 
Without looking particularly at it I put it on and started down Wall 
Street. When I was quite a distance, along came Edison. He said: 
“You have got my hat.” He had my hat on, but he had it on the back 
of his head as a halo is usually worn. My hat was long enough from 
front to back but too narrow across the forehead, and his hat fitted me by 
leaving a half inch space over each side. So we exchanged hats and I 
went on and he went back. 

With regard to his physique, he is under the average height, very 
broad shouldered, very thick through the chest and evidently possessed 
of a great deal of vitality. With his wonderful power of concentrating 
his attention upon a single thing and persisting in it, he also possesses 
another power that very rarely is possessed by the same man—that is, 
quickness of perception. If he makes an experiment, he will sec in that 
experiment ten times as much as the average scientfic experimenter. It 
will suggest to him ten times as much. I went to his laboratory at the 
time he was first experimenting on incandescent lamps. He had rows 
of them there He was then quite deaf, but not so deaf as now. He 
would walk up and down before those rows of lamps and say “That one 
is going in a minute.” I looked at it but could not distinguish any dif¬ 
ference between it and the others. Mr. Howell, who will lecture before 
you, was with me, and I asked him about it. He said he could not see 
any difference. Only Edison could see that. That is the type of the man— 
that is the power that he has. 

Now I think that the man himself is as nearly presented to you as 
he can be without being here in person. I will make you another promise, 
and that is I will do my best to beguile Mr. Edison over here some other 
Friday evening. I will not let any one of you know when to expect 
him, but I will have him come and deliver a lecture no matter who the 
regular lecturer is. Those that are here will See him ; those that are not, 
will miss him. 

I will tell you of his inventions. Not the early inventions. I will 
begin at the wrong end. In his letter he wrote to me from his concen¬ 
trating works—from Ogden, N. J. 


13 


All through New Jersey there are large beds of magnetic ores—iron 
ores attracted by the magnet. There are many different kinds but this 
particular New Jerseyiiron ore is attracted by the magnet. It is, how¬ 
ever, a very lean ore—there is a great deal of dirt and rock mixed in with 
it—and although the ore itself is of the finest quality and will make the 
finest steel, they have not been able to mine it at a profit heretofore, for the 
reason that it was too much trouble to separate it. Mr. Edison,, many years 
ago, undertook to buy these magnetic ore beds in New Jersey, and also 
mines out in other parts of the country for the same purpose, but his 
principal purchases were in New Jersey. He then went to work with 
the aid of his friends building an ore concentrating works. He has been 
at that thing three or four years. He is worth three or four millions of 
dollars himself. Individually, he has so far put one and a half millions 
of dollars into his investments in ore beds and in machinery at Ogden, 
New Jersey, and up to six or eight months ago he had gotten nothing out 
of it. I am glad to say however, that he writes me that it is a success 
practically. 

Tne way in which he treats his ore is to pass it through large rollers 
some 20 to 30 inches in diameter, to crush it very fine indeed, and then 
allow it to fall before magnets or upon the magnetic iron cores. It flies 
over to the end of those large magnets and the gangue or dirt or dust falls 
straight down. I will make a little sketch on the blackboard which will 
show you the general principle—not the machine, but the principle on 
which the whole of the concentrating process is carried out. 

The crushing and grinding process is just the same as the crushing 
and grinding used in any ordinary process. After it is done, the crushed 
material, dirt and ore, get run into the spout (indicating) and runs down 
in front of the magnets. Here is a series of magnets and here is a “ V ’ ’ 
shaped piece. These magnets attract the fine ore and it slicks to this one 
first. Pretty soon a big load conies there and it gets too heavy, falls 
a little farther and gets bigger yet and falls on down, and finally gets 
down there and falls off—runs off in the spout This ore is clean of all 
dirt. He takes that and makes it into a cake about that size (indicating 
6 inches) and about an inch thick. He works it up with rosin, and he has 
orders to ship all of that that he can make to the Bethlehem Iron Works, 
and they convert it into metal for making steel. That is the principle of his 
last invention. In order to carry that out on a very large scale, it has 
been necessary for him so far to spend a million and a half dollars. 

You have all of you seen another invention of his which I never 
have regarded as being quite up to his standard, and that is the 
kinetoscope. 

All through the various watering places and cities of the coast, you 
will see advertisements of the kinetoscope, and by going in and paying 
five cents you can see a dance, a boxing match or dog fight—almost any¬ 
thing—going on for about thirty seconds. 

The principle of the kinetoscope is the same as that of the old 
zootrope. It was a circular shallow box with a series of slots cut in it, 
and a light thrown on it, and you looked through a slit while it whirled 


and you could see almost any sort of an animal in motion. The way that 
was done was this ; A horse trotting for instance. Taking just a leg in 
order to save time. (Illustrating on blackboard.) Successive positions 
of the various limbs of a horse are laid out in this way in successive fig¬ 
ures, and you. see in rapid succession one horse throwing out his foot, 
another horse putting his foot down and so on, and the result, one 
following the other as fast as one-tenth of a second—which is the length 
of time it takes the eye to see anything—it looks to you as if you saw 
the horse in motion, but instead you saw two dozen horses in different 
positions. Edison has taken a series of photographs one after another 
at intervals of one-tenth of a second or perhaps less, of those men en¬ 
gaged in a prize fight, or those of chickens or ducks—anything of that 
sort—and he has arranged the mechanism on which the whole is formed, 
and then this zootrope arrangement presenting it in quick succession to 
your eye, and the result is, he has so perfected, by means of instantaneous 
photography, and so regulated the speed by means of electric motors, 
that you get a much more perfect illusion than the old zootrope, when 
one had to slowly paint the position—each position—of the animal under 
observation. That is all there is in the kinetoscope—nothing more than 
this. 

Now, there is one more invention to which I wish to call your 
attention before asking you again to listen to it—and that is the 
phonograph. Great things were hoped of the phonograph. Great 
things should have come of it. But, financially, it has proved an egregious 
blunder. Edison received from Mr. Lippincott, if I remember rightly, 
three-quarters of a million dollars for his patent on the phonograph, and 
Mr. Lippincott soon failed and thereafter died, after undertaking to 
make a success financially of the phonograph. There was no fault in the 
phonograph ; the fault was that the business men of the United States 
were not a class of skilled engineers and mechanics, and the result was 
they got into trouble right away with the phonograph, and they declined 
to go on using it, and as the Phonograph Co., had not sold them outright, 
but were renting them, they were immediately thrown back on the hands 
of Mr. Lippincott, and he had a large investment producing no return. 

It is a very useful instrument in the hands of a person with sufficient 
skill and patience to make use of it and learn how to use it. It is par¬ 
ticularly useful, as you have already seen, this evening, in preserving the 
voice and speech of others, and it is also particularly agreeable as an 
entertainment in reproducing music of brass bands, instrumental music 
or singing of a comical nature. Of course, when you have singing of a 
supposed melodious character, the tin-pan like voice of the phonograph 
does not flatter the artists, and they have given up the attempt to sing into 
it with a view of having their voices preserved. 

I will not go on with any more of Mr Edison’s inventions, because 
we have all agreed not to take more than an hour of your time ; but I 
wish to say to you that at 48 years of age, I regard Mr. Edison as a man 
who is constantly pushing beyond the utmost verge of human thought, as 
a man of almost—I was going to say divine—attributes, attributes such 

- 15 




as are attributed to the god Prometheus, the god of invention—ability to- 
forever find out new truths in nature. And he is also one of the greatest 
captains of industry that the world has ever seen. 

I have not looked into the matter closely, but I do not doubt that to¬ 
day there are invested in his inventions over five hundred millions 
dollars of capital, and, when you come to labor, there are employed 
over 50,000 men, supporting over 200,000 women and children, or a total of 
a quarter of million of people, who, in these hard times, would probably 
be out of work, were it not for the genius of this one man—Thomas A. 
Edison. 




16 


BOILERS OFTHE EDISON ELECTRIC LIGHT CO. 


OF PHILADELPHIA, 

BY 

THOMAS O. ORGAN, 

Supt. of Building. 


Iii constructing the steam power plant our first attention must be 
given to the boilers ; and in selecting a steam boiler, we must study the 
economy in the use of coal and safety in steam generation. It has been 
estimated in 1870 that 200,000,000 tons of coal were annually used for 
making steam. At a low estimate this coal would cost $500,000,000, from 
which it will be seen how largely even a small per cent, of savings would 
add to the wealth of the world. While manufacturers and engineers have 
given considerable attention to the improvement of the steam engine, 
whereby they might reduce the consumption of steam for a given amount 
of power, they have comparatively given little attention to the economy 
of its generation. In fact we find at the present day, boilers in use, 
which are substantially the same as were used a century ago. Lately 
we find steam users have begun to realize that there are other principles 
and aims of equal prominence and greater importance to be considered 
in choosing a boiler to the selection of a steam engine. 

In the selection of a steam boiler we must study the following require¬ 
ments. The best material that experience and scientific investigation 
have sanctioned. A boiler must be simple in construction, of the very 
best workmanship, durable and not liable to require early repairs. 

All boilers should have a mud drum, where all impurities from the 
water can be deposited, in a place far away from the action of the fire. 
There should be sufficient steam and water capacity. The steam should, 
have plenty of room to disengage itself from the water and prevent foam¬ 
ing, and the water level prevented from fluctuating. 



The water should have a constant circulation, so as to maintain all 
parts of the boiler at one temperature. The water space should be 
divided into sections, so that no general explosion can occur, and the 
destructive effects confined to the simple escape of the contents. All 
passages should be large enough to equalize the passage of the water and 
maintain a true water line. 

A boiler should have excessive strength over all legitimate strains, 
and so constructed as not to be liable to unequal expansive strains. By 
all means the joints should be far removed from the fire. 

The combustion chamber should be so arranged, so that the combus¬ 
tion of the gases may be completed before escaping up the chimney. The 
heating surface should be arranged at right angles to the heated gases, 
and the current of heated gases broken up and its valuable heat extracted 
before passing into the atmosphere. 

Every part of a boiler should be accessible for cleaning and repairs. 
This point is of the greatest importance, as regards safety from explosion 
and economy of fuel. That ordinary boilers do explode is witnessed 
almost every day by the sad list of casualities. In the year 1887, there 
were no less than 198 explosions recorded, killing or badly wounding 652 
persons. There is no need to resort to mysterious causes for the destruc¬ 
tive energy displayed in a boiler explosion. 

It has been estimated that there is sufficient stored energy in a plain 
cylinder boiler with a hundred pounds pressure of steam to project it to a 
height of over 3^ miles. A cubic foot of heated water under a pressure 
of 70 pounds per square inch has about the same energy as one pound of 
gunpowder. 

In speaking of water tube boilers, the store of available energy is 
usually less than that of any 7 of the other stationary 7 boilers, and not very 
much from the amount stored pound for pound in the plain tubular boiler. 
It is evident that their admitted safety from destructive explosion does 
not come from that relation however ; but from the division of the contents 
into small portions. And especially from those details of construction 
which make it tolerably certain that any rupture shall be local. 

If steam boilers are properly proportioned and constructed, they will, 
when new, be safe against considerable more pressure than the safety 
valve is set to. The hydrostatic test properly applied may discover faults 
in material, but against the danger resulting from unequal expansion, 
ordinary boilers have no protection, a fact not properly appreciated by 
engineers and the public. 

In a great many boilers we find some parts very hot, while other 
parts are very cold. Under these conditions enormous strains must occur 
in some parts of the boiler, which are thereby weakened. These strains 
constantly repeated must certainly destroy the strength at some point and 
eventually cause a rupture. Generally the rupture is small and gradual, 
but sometimes large and productive of disastrous explosions. 

Want of circulation of the water in a boiler is a frequent and prolific 
cause of unequal expansion and deteriorating strains, and little if any 
provision is made for circulation in ordinary construction of boilers. 

18 


A constant source of danger in most boilers is low water. Constant 
vigilance is required to keep the water at the proper height. Otherwise 
the fall of a very few inches will cause the crown sheet or some other 
portion to become dry. These parts being exposed to the direct heat of 
the fire, become overheated, weakening the metal to such an extent that 
an explosion is likely to occur. 

Unequal expansion and weakening of boilers is often caused by a 
deposit of scale on the heating surface, causing burring and blistering of 
the iron. This is liable to occur in any boiler. In a great many there is 
no provision made for the removal of scale when found. This is particu¬ 
larly the case with tubular and locomotive boilers. How often do we 
hear of disastrous explosions with one half the pressure that has stood the 
inspector’s test of just a few days before. We find no corrosion or other 
natural causes with which we are acquainted, save expansion, can produce 
this result. 

If we wish to provide against explosions, we must first have ample 
strength. This can be attained with thin heating surface and by small 
diameter of parts, being very careful not to carry it so far as to antago¬ 
nize the equally important feature of a large capacity and disengaging 
surface. 

The most important element of safety in a steam boiler is its structure. 
It should be so constructed that the original strength cannot be destroyed 
by deteriorating strains from explosions or otherwise. Every part of a 
boiler should be so arranged that unequal expansion could not occur by 
providing such elasticity that will overcome all deteriorating strains. 

When designing a boiler, the parts should be so arranged that when 
through gross carelessness, the water becomes low, and the boiler becomes 
overheated, a rupture if it occur, can produce no serious disaster. 

A stayed surface should not be permitted in a boiler. It is scarcely 
possible that such stays are or can be so adjusted as to bear equal strains. 
The one sustaining the heaviest .strain gives way. The others will follow, 
as a matter of course, and a disastrous explosion ensues. 

The mere presence of a water tube boiler does not make everything 
safe. A water tube boiler may be combined with other features which 
make it exceedingly dangerous. They may have a flat surface stayed 
or unstayed, or like a porcupine boiler, have their shells perforated like 
perforated card board ; and to make matters worse, expanding the tubes 
into these holes seriously strains the metal, making the construction still 
weaker. 

When purchasing a steam boiler, we must not forget its safety by any 
means. We do not know of any boiler that is perfect in all the points 
that I have mentioned. A boiler may be designed so that every part 
has freedom to expand and contract, relieving the boiler from excessive 
strains ; but through dishonest workmanship, the sections are put together 
in such a manner to make the boiler perfectly rigid. Those workmen 
do away with the elasticity properly provided by the designer and often 
cause an explosion. The boilers on the 4th floor of this station, Fig. 2, 
which gave us so much trouble, were imperfect in workmanship and 

19 


design. We found the bolts body bound in both the lugs on the bends 
and headers, Fig. 7, the under side of the bend resting on a key lug, and 
the bolts hanging on one side of the head. Fig. 11. We also found the 
seat for the packing ring eccentric, Fig. 8, and a very heavy packing 
ring, Fig. 7, making a flange joint. In fact, the bend was so rigid that 
the boiler had no freedom to expand or contract, without putting excessive 
strains on the bolts, breaking them off like icicles. Fig. 11. The total 
steam pressure on each bend is about 3010 pounds. Each bolt in connect¬ 
ing a bend has a tension of 3000. This tension on the bolt is caused by 
tightening of the bend. By multiplying 3000 by 4 will give us 12,000 
pounds. Add 3010 pounds steam pressure to the 12,000 pounds, and we 
get 15,010 pounds. 

The breaking strain of these four bolts is 64,000 pounds. We now 
take 15,010 pounds, which is the steam pressure and strain on the bolts 
by connecting the bend, from 64,000 pounds, and we find that it will take 
48,990 pounds more than we required to break the bolts. 

Is it possible that 15,010 pounds would break 4 bolts that had a total 
strength of 64000 pounds, if there was no other cause than the pressure of 
steam ? 

Gentlemen, the cause of the bolts breaking in our boilers was, in the 
first place, bad workmanship, and in the second place, expansion and 
contraction of the tubes. The breaking of bolts in our boilers is by some 
attributed to some mysterious chemical action of the water we use. 
Others to vibration of the building, and by some, electricity. The super¬ 
vising engineer of this concern setting aside the beclouded theories of 
self styled experts regarding certain explosive gases, mysterious chemical 
changes, electricity, &c., and came down to a solid basis of cause and 
effect. By doing so we found the bends connected in the manner I have 
described to you. No man, that knows anything about a steam boiler, 
and had a conscience, would ever do such work as we found on those 
boilers. When rebuilding those boilers, I personally examined every slot 
in the headers and holes in lugs of the bends. Every bolt has now a ball 
and socket joint. Fig. 5 and 10. Every ring has been made elastic, and 
the bend free to move with the expansion and contraction of the boiler. 
Fig. 5. You will notice in the drawings that the headers are not flush 
the one with the other. Fig. 9. This is caused by the expansion of the 
tubes, the tubes receiving the most heat are the longest. I will endeavor 
to show you the strain put upon those boilers by the expansion of the 
tubes. The co-efficient for expansion of wrought iron is merely a figure 
showing the fractional parts of the total length of a piece of that material, 
which it will expand when heated 1 degree Fall. (.0000068) Every degree 
of heat applied up to a certain limit, a piece of iron will expand .000006S 
of its length. If we take a piece of iron 1 inch long, at a temperature of 
60 degrees and heat it to 61 degrees, it will become 1.0000068 inches 
long. Our boiler tubes are 18 feet long and contain 216 inches. The 
tubes are generally made of No. 10 iron, which is about .134 inches. 
The tubes are 4 inches outside diameter and the inside 3.732 inches. If 
we take the area of the small circle, and subtract it from the large circle,, 
we find the metal composing the tube to be 1.6275 square inches. 


20 


We will suppose that the average temperature of our boiler, when 
cold, is 60 degrees ; and when heated to a temperature of 360 degrees, 
which is about 130 pound pressure by the steam gauge, we have seen for 
each degree Fah. each tube will elongate .0000068 of their original total 
length. If we use the co-efficient of expansion and multiply it by 216 
inches, the length of our tubes, you will find for each degree one of these 
tubes will expand .0014688 of an inch. 

If one degree cause such elongation, for 300 degrees it will be elong¬ 
ated .44064 inches which is almost y 2 of an inch. 

We have seen that our boiler tube is 216 inches long; and that it 
elongates at a temperature of 300 degrees Fah., .44064 of an inch. In 
order to find what part of our last given figures are of the total length, 
we must divide 216 inches by .44064 of an inch, and we get a little over 
*90 of its total length. 

A well recognized American authority says that if we wish to stretch 
a bar of iron one inch square to double its length (if it was possible,) 
it would require 29,000,000 pounds. Now 4^ of 29,000,000 pounds is 
59,183 pounds per square inch of area. Our tubes contain 1.6275 inches 
area, multiply this by 59,183 pounds and we get a weight of 96,283 pounds, 
which would be required to pull each one of these tubes out the same 
length that it has elongated by the action of the heat, when doing its 
regular work. Therefore the heat strain on each one of these tubes is 
equal to about 43 tons. 

You will see by this how essential it is to make every part of a boiler 
free from all expansive strains. 

When the first Battery of Boilers was installed in this Station, they 
had no swinging beam for the front part of the tubes to rest on, to give 
the tubes freedom to expand. Fig. 2G. Consequently the front walls 
were bulged out, and the boiler fronts broken so badly that we were 
compelled to brace the fronts with wood and iron. 

This swinging beam (Fig. 2G.) of which the builders now boast, I 
believe was suggested by Prof. Marks, the President of this Company. 

In the first part of my address, I said that every boiler should have a 
mud drum, so that all impurities of the water could be deposited. 

The builders of the boilers on our 4th floor, claim that the mud drum 
is in its proper place and all the dirt is deposited there, (Fig. 2 F.) and 
cannot be carried up into the tubes ; but our experience proves that this 
is not the case. If you disconnect the bends on the top row of tubes at 
the back, you will find them almost full of mud. Fig. 2 H. Examine 
headers and bends, that should keep clean (if there was a good circula¬ 
tion) and had a mud drum that would receive the dirt, and you will find 
them full of mud. 

In the Babcock &Wilcox Boilers the construction is changed. Here 
we do not have so many obstructions for the passage of water, the water 
making a complete circuit, (Fig. 3) the feed water entering the front of 
the'boilers (Fig. 1 G) is carried back with the circulating water and down 
the back headers depositing its dirt in the mud drum. Fig. 1 D. 

Upon examination of the headers front and back of these boilers, we 
find no deposit. Fig. 1 E. These boilers do not carry the dirt up into 


21 


the tubes like the boilers cn the 4th floor. In fact if you should keep 
the Babcock & Wilcox Boilers on the line for 3 months continously, they 
would not be so dirty as the 4th floor boilers would be in three days. If 
you notice the construction of the 4th floor boilers, you will see there is 
44 obstructions to the passage of the water and steam in each section. 
Fig. 4. You cannot carry a true water level, sometimes the water is at 
the top of the glass and sometimes at the bottom, which makes it very 
difficult to feed the boiler. The Babcock & Wilcox boilers have no 
obstruction to the passage of the steam and water and carry a true water 
line. 

When the 4th floor boilers are on the line the steam pressure should 
be maintained at the given pressure, as the rise and fall of a few pounds 
will cause the boiler to leak badly at the bend connections. It will not 
only cause leaks at the bend connections, but put uneven expansion and 
contraction strains on the boiler. 

Although the boilers in this Station are not liable to destructive ex¬ 
plosions, great care should be exercised to avoid damage to the boiler, 
and expensive delays. The boilers should be kept perfectly clean inside 
and out. otherwise there will be a serious waste of fuel. The presence of 
scale or sediment in the tubes results in a loss of fuel, burning aud crack¬ 
ing of the boiler, predisposes to explosion and leads to extensive repairs. 

The presence of inch of scale causes a loss of 13 percent, of fuel, 
inch, 38 percent, and inch, 60 percent. For every locomotive in 
the Middle and Western States, there is an average annual loss of $750.00, 
due to incrustation. 

Analysis of a great variety of incrustations show that carbonate and 
sulphate of lime form the larger part of all ordinary scale, that from car¬ 
bonates being soft and granular, and that from sulphates hard and crys¬ 
talline. Organic substances in connection with carbonate of lime will 
also make a hard and troublesome scale. The most common and iinpor- 
ant minerals in a boiler scale are carbonate of lime and sulphate of lime, 
and carbonate of magnesia. Sometimes small amounts of Alumnia and 
Silica are found, and Oxide of Iron not infrequently is present as a color¬ 
ing matter. 

Though a boiler may have a rapid circulation of water and delay the 
deposit, and certain chemicals change its character, the most certain cure 
is periodical inspections and mechanical cleaning. Cleaning may be 
rendered less frequent by the use of some preventative. 

The following are some of the samples now in use and their results. 

Barks of wood, such as Oak, Hemlock, Sumac, and Logwood are ef¬ 
fective in waters containing carbonates of lime or magnesia, by reason of 
the tannic acid which they contain. This tannic acid is very injurious to 
the iron, and should not be recommended. 

So far as a scale is concerned, the following have been used, by rea¬ 
son of the acetic acid which they contain :—Vinegar, Fruits, Cane Juice 
and Molasses. These scale preventatives should not be used, as the 
acetic acid is even more injurious to the iron than tannic acid. The or¬ 
ganic matter forms a scale when sulphate of lime is present. Soda ash 
and other alkalies are very useful in water containing sulphate of lime, as 


22 


they will combine with it and form a carbonate in the shape of a soft 
scale, which is very easily removed. 

Great care must be used when using Soda Ash or other alkalies, as 
they will cause foaming, particularly where there is oil coming from the 
engines. Petroleum has been highly recommended as a scale preventative 
where sulphate of lime predominates. I find that petroleum is of no use 
when carrying over 80 lbs. steam pressure, as the Petroleum vaporizes, 
when heated to 316 degrees Fall. 

Water tube boilers are used in this Station for the following reasons: 

The thick plates such as are ordinarily used in steam boilers would 
not transmit the heat quick enough to the water, should we get a sudden 
demand for steam ; and would admit of overheating and burning the side 
next to the fire, which w r ould put excessive strains on the boiler, resulting 
in loss of strength, cracks, and a tendency to rupture, which is the direct 
cause of most explosions. Water tubes like used in our boilers form 
thin envelopes for the water next to the fire, and transmit the heat so 
readily that the fiercest fire cannot overheat or injure the surface, as long 
as it is covered with water upon the other side. 

Suppose we had tubular boilers with double thick riveted joints ex¬ 
posed to the fire, and we should have a sudden demand for steam, as we 
often do in the summer months, it would not be safe to raise the pressure 
quickly on these boilers, as the double thick riveted joints being the weak, 
est part of the structure, concentrate upon themselves all strains of un¬ 
equal expansion, giving rise to frequent leaks and not rarely to actual 
rupture. The tubes and tube sheets, when exposed to the direct action 
of the fire also cause much trouble. The boilers in this Station have no 
thick plates or double thick riveted joints. All joints are farremoved from 
the direct action of the fire. 

The draught area, which is limited in all fire tube boilers to the actual 
area of the tubes, in these boilers has the whole chamber, which gives 
ample time for the gases to give up their heat during their passage, 
before making their exit up the chimney. 

A perfect combustion depends upon a thorough mixture of gases with 
a proper quantity of atmospheric air. The analysis of gases from various 
furnaces show almost uniformly an excess of free oxygen, proving that 
sufficient air is admitted to the furnace, and that a more thorough and 
perfect mixing is needed. Every particle of gas evolved from the fuel 
should have its equivalent of oxygen, and must find it while hot enough 
to combine, in order to be effective. In our boilers the gases are broken 
up and thoroughly mixed by passing between the tubes, and have an 
opportunity of complete combustion in the chamber between the tubes 
and the drums. 

The w r ater in our boilers being divided into small parts and passing 
through the hottest part of the furnace, steam may be started very 
rapidly ; and sudden demands upon the boiler may be met by'a quickly 
increased efficiency. The Babcock and Wilcox Boilers on the 6tli floor 
have large drums, which gives them a large disengaging surface. They 
have also a dry pipe, (Fig. iB) w T hich secures a thorough separation of 
the steam from the water, when the boiler is forced to its utmost. 

23 


The boilers on the 4th floor have one-half of the 14 inch drums as a 
■disengaging surface. Fig. 1B. The steam is then carried up through the 
nipples at the back into the 36 inch steam drum. Fig. 2A. This 36 
inch steam drum is supposed to dry the steam before it enters the main 
steam line. No doubt there is a wave motion set up in the 14 inch drums, 
'(Fig. 2G) often carrying the water up through the nipples into the 36 
inch steam drum. This wave motion in the 14 inch drums is caused by 
the obstructions to the passage of the water and steam up through the 
bends and headers. Unless sufficient steam and water capacity is provided, 
there will not be regularity of action, the steam pressure will suddenly 
rise and as suddenly fall; and the water level will be subject to frequent 
and rapid changes. 

Water capacity is of more importance than steam space, owing to the 
small relative weight of the steam. Too much water space makes slow 
steaming and waste of fuel in starting. Too much steam space adds to 
the radiating surface, and increases the losses from that cause. 

One great advantage of a water tube boiler is its accessibility for 
cleaning. Every tube can be removed by simply removing a cap or a 
bend ; every drum can be examined by the removal of a hand hole plate. 
In a fire tube boiler, the tube can be quickly covered to one half of its 
surface with dust or soot, the water tube will retain only a limited amount 
on its upper side, and then becomes in a measure self cleaning. By the 
occasional use of steam through a blowing pipe, the tubes can be kept 
free from dust and in condition to receive the heat to the best advantage. 








24 



































































































MACHINE WORK AND MACHINERY ERECTION, 

BY 

A. FALKENAU, 

Mechanical Engineer and Machinist. 


In all industrial establishments where machinery is used, an appre¬ 
ciation of the work requisite in building the machines and an understanding 
of the care requisite in erecting them, will enable the employee to better 
perform his duty with greater satisfaction to himself as well as his em¬ 
ployer. This is particularly the case where the product is not a material 
one and the care of apparatus and machinery is the sole occupation of the 
employee. One of the highest types of this class of industry is that of 
furnishing electric light. 

I do not propose to deal with the design or construction of engines, 
boilers and dynamos. What I desire to call your attention to is rather 
the machine and other work required in shaping the various parts, insur¬ 
ing proper fits and relative positions so that the completed work will be 
a machine or appliance properly suited for the purpose for which it was 
intended. The erection of this work will form the second part of my 
subject. 

Let us follow the work of construction of a machine from the point 
where it leaves the draughtman’s hands. We should have a complete set 
of drawings. One or more of the drawings should show the relations 
which the parts should ultimately bear to each other, which is usually 
called the erecting or general drawing. Then we should have drawings 
showing each part of the machine in detail. The detail drawings should 
indicate the relative distances, surfaces tQ be finished, holes to be bored 
or drilled, etc. 

The first mechanical operation to be performed in accordance with 
these drawingsfis the making of patterns for such parts as are to be of 
cast metal. It is of the utmost importance to the pattern maker to know 
what material each piece is to be made of and the draughtsman should 


25 



indicate in the drawings, whether the piece is to be of iron, steel, brass 
babbit, etc. The pattern maker will make the pattern larger in its dimen¬ 
sions than those shown on the drawings in accordance with the kind of 
metal so as to allow shrinkage, which occurs as the metal cools after it is 
cast. For cast iron the shrinkage is one-eighth of an inch per foot, for 
brass three-sixteenth of an inch per foot, and for cast steel the shrinkage 
varies considerably and is frequently as much as one-quarter of an inch 
per foot. . 

In determining the dimensions to be given to the pattern, the pat¬ 
tern maker must also consider the form of the piece to be cast. If the 
pattern can be easily withdrawn from the mould he must make the di¬ 
mensions of his pattern greater at the point where finish is to be 
allowed for, than he would if the pattern had to be rapped in order to 
free it from the sand so as to be able to withdraw it. Moreover if the 
piece is a light and long one so that the casting is liable to warp in cool¬ 
ing he must allow more for finish than he otherwise would. The patterns 
having been made they should be thoroughly examined to see that they 
are of proper dimensions and that the considerations I have just mention¬ 
ed have received due attention. In obtaining proper castings much de¬ 
pends upon the skill of the foundryman. With the best of patterns he 
may fail to produce a good casting, if the mould is not properly rammed 
or vented, the iron run too cold or the casting improperly cooled. 

We will suppose w r e have succeeded in obtaining a good set of cast¬ 
ings for the machine we intend to build. 

In order to properly accomplish the machine work it is of the utmost 
importance that the foreman should have a clear idea of the ultimate 
purpose of the machine he is building. The degree of accuracy required 
in the work should always be determined and be dependent upon the op¬ 
eration which the finished machine is to perform. 

For example, the work on an ore crushing machine can be of a much 
rougher kind than that on a steam engine ; and a lathe for tool room 
work should be of much finer w r orkmansliip than one for rough turning. 
The demand made for accurate work is growing more exacting each year. 
In the time of James Watt a cylinder bored one quarter of an inch out of 
round was considered a good job^ while nowadays there are cases where 
a cylinder must be made true within .001 of an inch. 

Many mechanics lack a clear idea of what accuracy should be de¬ 
manded. Sometimes they are unreasonable in their demands and at 
other times they do not insist upon sufficieut accuracy because they fail 
to appreciate the need of it. I have had persons request me to make 
them a perfectly accurate screw and expecting to obtain the same within 
two hours of giving the order. The work of grinding an accurate screw 
say a foot long such as required for a fine dividing machine takes several 
weeks. Certainly such accuracy is not required for ordinary machine 
work. 

I propose to give you an idea of some of the precautions necessary 
in handling ordinary machine work. The work on heavier machine parts 
is as a rule more easily accomplished than that on light ones. For exam- 

26 


pie the planing of the guides on a heavy steam engine bed require 
that the bed should be properly secured to the bed of the planer and or¬ 
dinary care exercised to procure the aligment of the plane surfaces with 
the center line of the cylinder. When the planing is done the bed may 
be removed from the planer and any further work to be done on the same 
proceeded with. Not so with a light table for a knitting machine. When 
the rough planing has been done the piece should be removed from the 
planer and left to season for days or weeks if possible and should then be 
returned to the planer for finishing up the work. This is the only way 
to obtain reasonably true work on light pieces. 

In much of the work to be done on planing machines the work of 
setting takes a large proportion of the total time of work. And although, 
as a rule people seem to think that covering the floor with chips is the 
best evidence of progress of work they will often find that more time 
spent on setting w r ould have been well spent. What I have said in re¬ 
gard to the importance of setting, applies equally to many pieces that 
have to be finished in the lathe, boring mill or other machine tool. Thus 
in a crank disk of an engine it is very important that the hole for the 
crank pin should be quite parallel to the hole bored to receive the shaft. 
It is easier to obtain accurate circular w r ork such as is done on a lathe, 
than straight line work and this should always be borne in mind when 
designing machines. 

Most circular w T ork is ready for use as it conies from the machines, 
whereas in straight line w T ork we find many pieces which must be scraped,, 
as for instance valves and valve seats or must be at least filed to make 
proper fits or finish, as for instance the strap ends of connecting rods. 
The amount of scraping to be done will largely depend upon whether the 
casting has been well handled in planing or not. 

From a distance, that is upon seeing the completed work, all the 
operations of turning, boring, planing, drilling, etc. seem simple enough, 
but they do not only require w r ell designed rigid machines and proper 
setting of the work but much thought and skill in the maintainance of 
the cutting tools. Thus in drilling, an operation with which you are all 
practically familiar, given the best made drill press and you will not ob¬ 
tain a true, smooth hole unless your drill is straight, has the lips evenly 
ground and proper clearance at the cutting edge. Some of the best ma¬ 
chinists are careless about giving attention to these points. In planing 
or turning the tools may be too springy and cause chattering or the tools 
may not be properly formed. 

One of the operations to be performed in the machine shop quite 
frequently and which nearly every mechanic has to deal with at some 
time or other is gear cutting. You may be settingup a machine and find 
that the gears have too much back lash or that the gears run irregularly. 
The apparatus by which the divisions were determined may be very 
inaccurate or while the teeth were being cut the gear blank may not have 
been running true on its mandrel. 

Defects in workmanship do not always present themselves during the 
erecting of machines but only after running them. Then sometimes these 


27 


defects are very hard to locate as probably many of you have experienced. 
Thus the knock in an engine, although generally due to the need of 
adjustment of some part in crosshead or connecting rod, may be due to 
the fact that the crank pin is not parallel to the axis. 

A comparatively slight error of this kind will produce a disagreeable 
knock. It is not always easy to determine that the error exists after the 
engine is erected as a surface table, squares straight edges and surface 
guages, which are used for examining work in the machine shop cannot 
be readily applied. Still in many cases the determination is a very simple 
one, when for instance the inclination of the crank pin is into or out from 
the centre and the engine has bored guides. We will suppose the engine 
is a horizontal one, then it will be found that if the engine is turned 
over so that the crosshead is first in the middle of the forward stroke and 
then brought to the middle of the return stroke, the crosshead which cer¬ 
tainly should occupy the same position in the two instances, will have 
revolved slightly about the axis of the piston rod. 

This will be more 
readily understood on 
examining Fig. i, 
where a, is the shaft, b, 
the crank disc, c , the 
position of the crank 
pin on the forward 
stroke, and d, its posi¬ 
tion on the return 
stroke. In Fig. 2, e 
shows the position of the crosshead when the crank pin is at c , and/, the 
position when the crank pin is at d. 

Now having in a general way referred to the methods and the care nec¬ 
essary in machine work and its subsequent erection let me pass on to 
the general considerations of the erection of machinery. Now you are 
no longer in the machine shop where tools are convenient for remedying 
any error you may discover, in fact as a rule you are placed with few con¬ 
veniences at hand and mother wit is of great service. 

Machinery can be divided into three general classes. 1st. Prime 
movers or Power producing machines. 2nd. Machinery of Transmis¬ 
sion and finally Operative Machinery. In the class of prime movers be¬ 
long, Steam Engines, Gas Engines, Windmills, Water Wheels, &c. Mach¬ 
inery of Transmission includes shafting, pullies and belts, rope drivers, 
hydraulic piping, etc. and under the class of Operative Machinery are in¬ 
cluded all the machines built for performing some special work. 

In erecting prime movers, the first question which usually presents 
itself is the securing of proper foundations. Good heavy foundations are 
always a good thing as far as the preservation of the machine is concerned, 
but the cost of such foundations is not always warranted. In mining 
machinery where engines and pumps are frequently moved it is custom¬ 
ary to make rather crude wood foundations. Wherever the location of a 
machine may be considered permanent, however, a well layed foundation 

28 










of stone, brick or cement is preferable. In mining practice where wooden 
foundations are used, the timbers, furnishing the foundation are framed 
together and well bolted in the form of a crib. The crib is then filled 
in with stone or earth, thus affording a large mass by which any vibra¬ 
tions of the machine are readily absorbed, and earth is frequently also 
tamped all around the foundation. 

In the cities where the vibrations due to the running of an engine 
are objectionable it is now common practice to build the foundation en¬ 
tirely independent of any neighboring walls and to carry the same down 
to or even below the general building foundations so as to have the vibra¬ 
tions taken up by the earth below. 

In building any foundation the safe load which the ground upon 
which it is built can carry must be considered. Sand, gravel or clay may 
be loaded with from one to three tons per square foot and the foundation 
should accordingly be spread out to produce such loading. 

Where engine beds are not in one single massive piece it is good 
practice to cap the foundation with a cast iron plate to which the engine 
and bearings, etc., are secured. The relative position of parts is thus more 
easily insured. In erecting engines or in fact any machines the matter 
of alignment should receive careful attention. 

It is a common occurrence for men to charge up all troubles they 
meet with to the bad workmanship in the shop, whereas much is to be 
charged to carelessness in erection. When assembling the parts of an 
engine each part should be carefully cleaned. Much of the heating and 
cutting we hear of is due to primeval dirt. When the parts have been 
assembled, care should be exercised to see that all passages and connections 
with the engine are clear and that pipes are so inclined as to lead 
entrained water to the point where it is desired to draw it off. When 
everything is in readiness the engine should be tested without a load and 
later on with a load with a view to finding any defects in the work of 
construction or erection. Faults in either of these directions will not 
always show at once. Thus badly fitted keys or mismanaged shrink fits 
may not show until the machinery has been run for some time. In the 
same way the yielding of foundations which have not been properly layed 
may not show itself for months after starting. Among the most trouble¬ 
some defects to locate are defects in castings. 

The castings as inspected in the shop may have appeared perfectly 
sound, yet I have known of troubles which the indicator recorded and 
others which announced themselves by noise, which it cost much thought 
and time to locate. 

In one case the indicator diagram pointed to a leak and as it was sup¬ 
posed to be due to the fit of the slide valve, that was thoroughly scraped 
in, but this did not improve matters. For months the engine was watch¬ 
ed and examined without any satisfactory result. On one occasion how¬ 
ever the engine was stopped at the end of its back stroke and the piston 
was found to be in the condition shown in Fig. 3 and 4. There was a 
cold shot in the casting, the metal included between the lines abed Fig. 4, 
not having united with the rest of the metal in the piston, acted like a 


29 


valve. When the steam pressure was on the back of the piston this was 
closed and the piston acted as it should, but on the return stroke the outer 
part of the piston was forced in the direction of the arrow, driving the 

piston rod solely by 
catching on the outer 
edges of the nut and 
opened the crack suf- 
ciently to permit steam 
to pass through. A 
case where a disagree¬ 
able knock showed that 
something was w r rong 
proved on examination 
that the noise was due 
to an almost imper¬ 
ceptible crack in the 
cylinder head. The 
cylinder head as shown 
in Fig. 5 is cored out 
so as to permit the 
inner wall of the head 
to be crushed in, in 
case water should get into the cylinder. The core had been shifted in the 
mould so that the metal at d, e, Fig 6, was only of an inch thick, and 
in consequence of which a crack rapidly developed in the corner shown 
at a , Fig. 5, and extending around three-quarters of the circumference 
from c to /, as shown in Fig. 6. When the back end of the cylinder was 
being exhausted the weight of the inner part of the cylinder head would 
open up the crack and as soon as the pressure for the forward stroke was 
admitted to the cylinder, the crack would be closed giving a sharp knock, 
which thus occured only at one point during one revolution of the crank. 

You will see from what I have already said that a familiarity with 
shop methods in the pattern shop, foundry or machine shop w r ill greatly 
aid those who are employed about machines of any kind in intelligently 
reasoning about difficulties they encounter. 

I will now say a few words in regard to the erection of the machin¬ 
ery of transmission. Nowadays there is hardly any one who must not in 
some way or other deal with shafts, pullies and belting. When installing 
a plant the most important point is that the shafts should be properly 
proportioned for the horse power they should transmit. All calculations 
with regard to these bring us back to the drafting room or engineer’s 
office where all the circumstances should be carefully considered. Some 
of these considerations which enter into the planning of a line of shafting 
are the material the shafting is made of, the distances between bearings 
and whether the load is constant or is thrown on suddenly, the distribution 
of the load at different points of the line and the velocity of revolution. 
The location and diameter of pullies should also receive careful consider¬ 
ation. 



30 





















The design being satisfactory much depends upon the way the shaft 
ing is erected. The line should be level and straight and the bearings 
or hangers should be rigidly secured. Any neglect of these precautions 
will throw additional friction on the shaft and when I tell you that there 
have been cases on very long lines of shafting, which have not been 
properly erected, where 90 per cent, of the work of the engine was re¬ 
quired to drive the shaft alone, you will see how important it is to look 
after these points. 

One source of trouble which is frequently to be found in lines of 
shafting, where the old fashioned flange coupling is used, is that the coup¬ 
lings are cocked on the shaft by the key way, where the couplings have 
been finished up independently of the shaft. The only way I know of 
securing a good job with the flange coupling is to key each half to its 
shaft and then face it up. The modern compression coupling if proper¬ 
ly applied will secure good alignment of the ends of the shafts. In lin¬ 
ing up shafts the use of a fine string, if care is used gives very satisfactory 
results, but the use of instruments will serve as a good supplement to the 
work already done. A very convenient leveling instrument is specially 
made for shaft lining work, which consists of two glass tubes to be 
placed vertically on the two points of the shaft to be tested, the glass 
tubes being connected by rubber tubing and the apparatus containing 
water to show the level readings. 

As to the pulleys it is important that the bore should be concentric 
with rim, and that it should fit the shaft. Any variation in this respect 
will alter the tension of the belts and hence the driving power. Pulleys 
on which the belts are to be shifted are usually made straight, but some 
mechanics claim to have been able to run belts satisfactorily by making 
the driving pulley slightly crowned and the loose pulley of a somewhat 
smaller diameter. The usual rule followed in making crowned pullies is 
to crown the rim one quarter inch for a foot width of face. In securing 
pulleys set screws are commonly used. At times however these cut into 
the shaft, so that it becomes impossible to remove the pulleys without 
breaking them. A good w r ay to avoid this is the introduction of a shoe 
under the set screws. 

In erecting counter-shafts the length of belt should be considered. 
Where possible the distances from center to center should not be less than 
twenty feet. Oak tanned belting has proved itself to be the best on the 
long run. The common custom is to allow a working strain of 50 to 60 
pounds to the inch width of single belts and 80 lbs. for double belts. As 
a matter of economy by giving the belts longer life it has been advocated 
by some to aPow only one half the amount of strain just mentioned. 
The almost universal practice is to allow about 60 lbs. strain per inch 
wddth of belt. 

The ultimate strength of leather used for belting is about 3000 lbs. 
per square inch of section. For calculating the size of a single belt a 
general rule is to allow 60 square feet per horse pow T er. A belt transmits 
force from one pulley to another solely due to the friction which the belt 
has on the pulley. As the friction by which we transmit the force can 


31 


only be a part of the total strain on the belt, the initial tension of the 
belt must be greater than the amount of force we wish to transmit. You 
probably all understand that when you first put a belt on two pullies the 
two sides are strained alike but as soon as you set your driving pulley in 
motion the driving side of the belt takes up a greater strain, while the 
other side becomes slack and is generally spoken of as the slack side of 
the belt. Roughly speaking the initial tension required is about one and 
one half times the working strain to be transmitted and when the belt is 
doing its work the driving side is strained to twice the amount of force 
to be transmitted. 

Thus if we wish our belt to have a working strain of sixty pounds 

we should have to strain our belt 
up until the strain was 90 lbs., 
that is until each side had a 
strain of 90 lbs. Now as soon 
as the belt performs its work the 
strain on the tight side will be 
120 lbs. and on the slack side 
60 lbs. This is clearly shown in 
figures 7 and 8. It is well to 
know this as many belts are 
stretched tighter than necessary 
and produce unnecessary fric¬ 
tion in the bearing of the shaft. It would be best if when tightening belts 
the strains put on were actually weighed. 

The rules I have given you are only approximate, for the tension 
required varies with the amount of the circumference of the pulley which 
the belt surrounds and also with the material and condition of the belt. 
Belts should be cleaned and greased about every six months. The use 
of rosin to increase the friction should be avoided as it injures the belts. 
If a belt needs tightening a general rule is to shorten it about one half 
an inch for every ten feet of length of belt’ 



The amount of horse power transmitted by a belt will depend upon 
its speed. One thousand to three thousand feet per minute are ordinary 
belt speeds but belts are sometimes run as high as four or five thousand 
feet per minute. To secure long life to belts large pullies are preferable. 
In order that the belts should run well the shafts on which the pullies are 
mounted should be parallel. But this alone does not prevent a belt from 
travelling off the pulley. 

Much depends upon the quality of the belt itself and upon the way 
it is laced. The leather from the center or back of the hide is closer 
grained and more uniform than that from the belly. It frequently hap¬ 
pens therefore that the leather on one edge of a belt is weaker than on the 
other edge and the stretch is therefore unequal and the belt may become 
quite loose on one side. Again in preparing to lace a belt the ends should 
be cut off square with a try square if possible. The holes should be 
punched out uniformly and the lace used of even width. Whether or 
not attention has been paid to all these little details will show itself very 


32 











soon after the machinery you have erected is started up. Belts without 
any lacing, namely cemented in place are preferable but certainly not 
always convenient. 

One other important element in machinery of transmission is the 
gear wheel. The smoothness of running of gear wheels depends greatly 
upon the shape of the teeth. If the teeth are cut. very good results may 
be attained-. In erecting these however care must be exercised to have 
the two gears at the correct center distance and the shafts parallel. Where 
the gears are cast from a pattern, a tooth of such gear will be thiner at 
one end than at the other owing to the draft required in the pattern, so 
that it can be withdrawn from the mould. In mounting cast gears the 
teeth should come together so that the draft of the tooth in one gear 
should be opposed to that in the other. Certainly you can never expect 
a cast gear to give as good results as a cut one. Machine moulded gears 
are better than those made from a full pattern but on account of shrink¬ 
age of the cast iron, these also are not quite regular. 

Operative Machinery, the last class which I have mentioned, is largely 
self contained, little being required in erecting it outside of proper founda¬ 
tion and aligment of counter-shafts. Of this kind are lathes and ma¬ 
chine shop tools in general, looms and spinning machinery, etc. Certain¬ 
ly there are some operative machines like rolling mills, stamp mills and 
the like, which are large and complicated and where a great part of the 
work comes in the erecting. 

Any one of the subjects I have touch upon this evening would per¬ 
mit of an extended treatment by itself. My object however has been to 
call your attention to the inter-relation between shop work and erection 
work in producing the result desired by every mechanic where a plant 
for any purpose is erected. 

Those who are employed about the erecting or operating of machin¬ 
ery should intelligently cooperate with those who originally construct it. 
Much can be learned by the builder of machinery from those who are 
able to observe the machines day by day as they perforin their functions 
or fail to perform them. In fact, I believe there is more to be learned 
from failures than from any other source. 

But you who have these failures occurring directly under your very 
eyes, have great advantages over those who have to reason from hearsay 
or casual examination. You can watch a knock in an engine from day to 
day and can test your reasoning about it in various ways and at various 
times. Or if the water guage iu your boiler does not act right you are 
familiar with all the conditions of the water, steam pressure, cleaning,, 
etc. and have many facts stored in your memory which should aid you 
in finding a reason for the peculiar behavior. 

The wider your knowledge is the more rapidly will you get at the 
truth, and I trust that the hints I have thrown out this evening may be of 
some use to you, when some ill-natured machine makes life a burden to vou. 


33 


STEAM PIPING AND MACHINERY, 


BY 

HARRY C. PHILLIPPI, 

Chief of Steam Dept. 


STEAM PIPING. 


In the Philadelphia Edison Station there are six io-inch main lines 
of steam pipe, one on the North, one on the South, two on the East and 
two on the West side. These latter lines cross the Engine Room from 
East to West, branching off North and South to supply the engines, so 

that we are prepared to furnish steam to any set of 
engines in the room, no matter from which quarter 
the steam is taken. After leaving the Boiler Room 
the steam flows down to the Engine Room, but 
just below the Dynamo Room floor, the io-inch 
main lines enter a separator (Fig. i) 18 inches in 
diameter by 9 feet long. The steam impinging on 
the top of the cone shield G, breaks it up, allowing 
the entrained water to separate and fall to the 
bottom, while the steam takes a reverse course 
*■«>* under the cone shield down through the io-inch 
internal tube J, to the main lines. By this means, 
we are enabled to keep the entrained water and the 
natural condensation from being picked up and 
carried into the engines, thereby saving cylinder 
heads from being blown out and general smash-ups, 
such as happened here before, and which will not 
happen again. 

Fig. 1 shows a wrought iron casing ^ inch 
thick, 18 inches in diameter and 9 feet long, on 

34 

































'which you will notice a very important adjunct in the shape of a high 
water alarm with whistle attached. This whistle tells us when the water 
is approaching the danger line. Thus the water rises through the i inch 
connection A, into the main body B, (also showing in the water glass H ), 
until it reaches the copper float ( 7 , which raises by floatation, throws 
the valve in the whistle Z>, open and the alarm is sounded. Immedi¬ 
ately the engineer opens the valve E, and allows the water to escape to 
the exhaust pipe. 

To see if the alarm is working properly at all times, there is a lever F } 
on top of the whistle D, which by lifting, the alarm is tested at various 
times during the day and night, which puts the engineer’s mind at rest, 
he knowing that there is one whom he can trust to tell him of danger in 
time to avoid having the cylinder head blown to atoms ; and perhaps he 
along with it, without any invitation. 

Water is one of the most dangerous elements the engineer has to deal 
with ; and to set aside all danger, provision is made for carrying off all 
water of condensation by means of drip pipes attached at convenient 
places. For instance, from all separators and all main line valves, there 
are independent pipes leading into a manifold, and from thence to the 
steam traps (Prof. Marks, Patent). The traps allow all water of condensa¬ 
tion to collect at one central point, and discharge without wasting steam. 
In addition to this, there is a system of auxiliary drip pipes, which dis¬ 
charge directly into the exhaust pipes. These auxiliary drip pipes are 
for the purpose of securing extra safety, in case any one of the main line 
-drip pipes should become closed, or a joint broken, or closing off for 
repairs. 

It is a mystery to some people how or why steam once made, should 
return to water again. This is caused by radiation of heat, and by radia¬ 
tion, we mean losing or giving up heat from a body of high temperature 
to a body of lower temperature. When the temperature of the two adjoin¬ 
ing bodies becomes equal, no more heat can be given up ; but in the case 
of steam pipes, the atmosphere is constantly changing, the heated air 
rising, leaving space for the cooler air to flow in and take its place. 
Consequently the radiation is constantly going on. Now there must be 
some means used to check this radiation, or the loss is very considerable 
from naked pipes, and in case of long lines of pipes, it becomes a serious 
matter, not only on account of the waste of fuel which is very important; 
but because the condensed water interferes considerably with the working 
of the engine, unless there is some means of getting rid of it, such as I have 
spoken of. This is one very important reason why all steam pipes should 
be covered with some good non-conducting material; as it checks radia¬ 
tion and lessens condensation, as the thickness of metal within the limit 
of ordinary practice does not seem to materially affect the quantity of 
heat radiated from uncovered surfaces. It has also been proven that 
there is no practical gain by covering steam pipes over i inch thick. To 
show the great value of covering steam pipes, the following is cited. 
Suppose we have an uncovered pipe io inches diameter, ioo feet long, 
which presents 35.5 square feet of surface to the cooling influence 

35 


of the atmosphere. The steam pressure 125 pounds plus 15 pounds atmos¬ 
pheric pressure, making an absolute pressure of 140 pounds. The temper¬ 
ature of steam at this pressure equals 354.8 degrees Fah. The temperature 
of the Engine Room 90 degrees. Then the loss from radiation would be 
28,201 heat units per hour, and as 1 pound of coal is not good for more 
than 1000 heat units, the result is we get a loss of 28.2 pounds of coal per 
hour or a total of 109.4 tons per year. If this coal cost $3.00 per ton, the 
loss would be $328.20. The loss in condensation would be 102 cubic 
feet. Loss in H. P. equals 1.04 H. P. By covering this pipe with 1 inch 
of good covering, the saving in coal would be 91.8 tons, leaving a loss of 
17.6 tons per year against 109.4 tons for an uncovered pipe. Thus the 
loss would be 1.04 H. P., and that saved being .87 H. P., making a net 
loss of .17 H. P. 

It is a noticable fact that if these losses occur from a pipe of this size,, 
what must the loss be from the hundreds and thousands of feet of pipe in 
daily use uncovered and no attention paid to the loss, as it seems to be a 
necessary factor in the running of many manufacturing establishments. 

There is a question that the engineer is very often called upon to con- 
sider, and that is whether the size of the steam pipes leading to his engine 
is sufficient to let through the amount of steam necessary to supply the 
engine, without a considerable fall of pressure. The engineer taking 
an indicator card, measures the height of the steam line above atmos¬ 
pheric line, and gets at once the pressure that was in the cylinder at the 
commencement of the stroke, and while the engine was taking steam. 
If this comes within a very little of the boiler pressure, he feels more 
satisfied ; but if on the other hand it shows a considerable fall from the 
pressure in the boiler, it at once brings to mind that there is something 
wrong, and he at once asks himself, what are we carrying a certain pres¬ 
sure in the boilers for, if it is not to get into the engine? He thinks and 
looks about to see the cause of the loss of pressure. Naturally the first 
object he looks at is the steam pipe. If it is not sufficiently covered, 
there will be a loss of pressure from this cause, and it would be quite an 
easy thing for the engineer to put an indicator on the steam pipe and 
connect it with the reducing motion of the engine, and take a diagram 
from the steam pipe, just as he would a diagram from the cylinder. This 
card would show the fluctuations of pressure in the steam pipe and where 
the piston was when these fluctuations took place. This would prove 
whether any loss in pressure might be between the pipe and chest, or 
between the chest and cylinder. If the diagram showed that immediately 
after the piston moved there was a noticable fall in pressure in the steam 
pipe, and that this continued until the engine had cut off, then it would 
be conclusive evidence that the steam pipe was not large enough to supply 
the demand for steam and keep up the pressure. If on the other hand, the 
card showed that the pressure in the steam pipe varied little from that in 
the boiler, then the diagram would show that any loss in the initial pres¬ 
sure in the cylinder was due to the inability of the steam to get into the 
cylinder and would show that the steam ports were restricted in area. 


36 


Engineers have found that in supplying steam to an engine through 
a pipe, the steam should not be obliged to move faster than ioo feet in a 
second, that is to say that if a pipe was more than ioo feet in length, that 
particle of steam in the pipe ioo feet from the cylinder, should reach the 
cylinder in one second. It will make no difference whether the steam is 
cut off early or late in the stroke, for the steam must move at that rate of 
speed to fill the cylinder while the valve is open. If the cylinder was 
required to be filled once in a second, entirely filled without cut off, it 
should take all the steam in ioo feet length of pipe in that second. If it 
is cut off at half stroke, only 50 feet of the steam in the pipe will be taken, 
but that 50 feet has to be moved in one half of a second. So with one 
quarter cut off, only 25 feet of the length of the steam pipe is relieved of 
its steam, but it must be relieved in one quarter of a second. The rate 
therefore is the same for all points of cut offs, for if there is less space to 
fill because of the cut off, the time in which it is to be filled is lessened 
in proportion. 

It is a fact that the area of the opening of a pipe multiplied by its 
length will give the volume that pipe will contain. Thus a steam pipe 
having an area of opening of 20 square inches and 500 inches in length 
would contain a volume of 20X500=10,000 cubic inches. Dividing 
this volume by its length will give the area of the opening of the pipe. 
If we know then how much volume of steam which must be supplied to 
au engine in one second, and wish to put it into a pipe 100 feet long, we 
have only to divide the volume by 100, and get at once what the area of 
the pipe must be to contain the volume of steam. 

We will then have a volume of steam in 100 feet length of pipe which 
must be emptied of its steam in one second to satisfy what the cylinder 
demands ; and the steam will therefore move at the rate of 100 feet in one 
second. 

If an engine makes 60 revolutions a minute, the piston makes two 
strokes per second, and the cylinder must be filled twice in this second. 

By multiplying the area of the piston by the length of stroke will 
give the volume to be filled in one stroke, and by two will give the 
volume to be filled in one second. It will be seen that if this is the 
proper area of the steam pipe, the area of the port must be just as much. 
It is here where the difficulty comes. The port should be open to an 
amount that will equal this area by such time as the piston starting from 
a state of rest gets to a movement equal to the rate of speed per second. 

In conclusion I will say, however, there is a loss of pressure at the 
elbows and through globe valves ; but this may be disregarded unless 
there are more than five of them, in which case they will produce a loss 
of pressure by the friction of the steam passing through them ; and further 
the steam pipe should never be so small that its capacity will ever be 
taxed, or so large that it will become a reservoir for unused steam. 

THE STEAM ENGINE. 

The steam engine is divided into two classes, namely, throttling and 
automatic cut off. The throttle governed engine is an engine in which 
the amount of steam is regulated by changing the pressure at which it 


37 


enters the cylinder, in accordance with the load, and is accomplished by 
the old fashioned ball governor. 

An automatic engine is an engine in which the amount of steam is 
regulated by cutting off the supply automatically at various points in 
the stroke, in accordance with the load and pressure, and is accomplished 
by what is known as a shaft governor. In a throttling engine, the volume 
admitted is constant, and the pressure is varied, while in the automatic 
cut off, steam is admitted at the highest available pressure, and the 
volume is varied to suit the requirements of the load. 

The automaticVut off engine is also divided into two classes. First, 
the single valve, in which the point of cut off is varied by changing the 
amount of travel of the valve, and second, the four valve engines, in 
which the cut off is usually effected by a detaching mechanism or trip, 
under control of the governor. Most of the single valve engines are high 
speed, self-contained with shaft governors, and their advantages are as 
follows :—High rotative speeds, light weight, compactness, portability 
and simplicity. The term high speed, is applied to those engines in 
which the length of the stroke in proportion to the diameter of the 
cylinder is shortened, and the piston speed made up by increasing the 
number of revolutions, while the Corliss and the four valve detachable 
cut off, as well as the old fashioned slide valve engine are slow speed. 
A single valve engine is one in which a single valve controls the admission 
and distribution of steam for both ends of the cylinder, as in the Arming- 
ton & Sims and the old fashioned slide valve engines. A four valve 
engine is one having a separate steam and exhaust valve for each end of 
the cylinder, as a Corliss engine, and is accomplished by attaching the 
valve rods to a wrist plate in connection with the eccentric rod. The 
motion of the exhaust valves is positive, opening and closing directly 
from the wrist plate. The crank of the steam valve stems is detachably 
connected with the wrist plate by a releasing mechanism under the con¬ 
trol of the governor. The steam valve is closed after the mechanism is 
released by a vacuum dash pot connected to the other arm of the crank. 

The engine that I will explain to you to-night is a single valve double 
ported with automatic cut off governor. The steam chest with valve 
seat is in one casting with the cylinder. The valve chest is enclosed by 
a cover as usual. This is a very desirable feature; as it enables the boring 

for the valve, and squaring up the ports 
to be accurately done, and it also gives 
the engineer the opportunity to set the 
valve easily, should it be necessary. It 
will be seen that the steam chest is filled 
with live steam, which surrounds the 
valve and by taking steam in the center 
of the valve and exhausting at each end, 
the steam ports from the cylinder can 
be very direct and the waste room kept as 
small as desired. In Fig. 2 the valve is 
shown as just taking steam into the cyl- 

38 





c >| urf o » Vnwt 

Fi<va 











































inder port at the piston end. The port in the valve at the other end is 
also just taking steam into a port which passes through the valve into the 
same cylinder port. This enables the cylinder to take steam very quickly 
at the commencement of the stroke. The steam is exhausted at each 
end of the valve by very direct passages, which quickly free the cylinder 
preventing back pressure very materially. 


The valve is a hollow piston valve cast in one piece, and is accurately 
ground, perfectly balanced, and was adopted after trial of a great many 
valves of different types for the following reasons : It is balanced, it is 
simple, there is nothing to get out of order and put undue labor on the 
regulatoi. It takes double the quantity of steam, as the usual piston 
valve gives a quick admission of steam and high economy with a small 
amount of clearance. This valve has been in use now for five years or 
more, and is perfectly tight. In fact, if properly made, and the lubrication 
attended to, they will keep tight much longer, and they are much more 
easily replaced or repaired than valves of any other type. The regulator 

or governor is what is known as the 
pulley governor, by which the valve 
operating eccentric is moved rela¬ 
tive to the shaft by centrifugally 
acting weights, so as to vary the 
throw of the valve and thus govern 
the admission of steam to the cylin¬ 
der to control the engine. Fig. 3 
consists of a wheel which is fixed 
to the engine shaft and to which 
are hinged the weights 1—1. These 
weights are controlled by springs, 
one end of which are fixed to the 
rim of the pulley, and the other in 
a pocket cast in the weight. The main eccentric C having ears attached) 
is placed on the hub plate, which is bolted to the hub of the driving 
pulley and is free to move on the hub plate. From these ears, there are 
two links 2—2, which are connected to the weights 1—1. On the outside 
of the main eccentric and free to turn is placed an eccentric ring D, 
from which the cut off link 3 is attached to the toe of one of the weights. 
On the eccentric ring are placed the usual eccentric straps, which has 
been omitted for clearness, to which are directly attached the valve rod- 

It will be seen that when the engine is running at its greatest velocity,' 
the weights due to the centrifugal force overcoming the tension of the 
springs will be out. 



F14 d 


The positions of the eccentrics will then be as shown in Fig. 3 A y 
which gives the valve its least travel and its shortest cut off. 

We will now take the other extreme. When the engine has its 
greatest load, requiring later cut off, the position of the eccentric will 


39 








then be as Fig- 4 B. It will be seen 
that when the weights are in this posi¬ 
tion, the main eccentric C. has been 
moved back ; and the eccentric ring D. 
has been moved forward, or in the 
opposite direction, and the eccentric¬ 
ity of this combined movement is in¬ 
creased B, sufficient to allow the steam 
to follow the piston up to the proper 
point of cut off. It is this wide range 
from the simple lead of the valve A 
Fig. 3 that causes the extreme sensi¬ 
tiveness of the governor and obtains 
such close and quick regulation. A 
feature peculiar to this governor is 
that it acts instantaneously, and whatever the change in load or steam 
pressure, the variation in speed from an extreme light load to the capacity 
of the engine will not exceed over two per cent. 

The instant there is the least variation of load or steam pressure, it 
is met by the governor and controlled ; and there can be no more severe 
test of the governing power of an engine than the Electric Light. 

BACK PRESSURE. 

Back Pressure has considerable influence on the total work done by a 
given weight of steam. Suppose the piston of a steam engine to be acted 
upon on one side by steam of 45 lbs. pressure absolute ; and if it be pos¬ 
sible, let there be no pressure acting on the other side of the piston. 
Then if the pressure of the steam were maintained uniform through 
the stroke, the diagram of pressures end volumes, or in other words, 
the diagram of work would be a simple rectangle Fig. 5. But in 
ordinary engines without a condenser, as the Locomotive and Factory 

engines, when the steam acts on one 
side of the piston, communication is 
open with the atmosphere through 
the exhaust passage 011 the other side, 
and it is therefore exposed to a back 
pressure of 15 lbs. per square inch, Fig. 6. The effective pressure is 
therefore 45—15 or 30 lbs ; and the effect is to remove all the lower part 
from zero to 15 lbs., and thus reduce the area of the diagram and also 
the effective work done. In practice there is an additional back pres¬ 
sure of from 2 to 4 lbs, possibly due to incompleteness of exhaust, mak¬ 
ing a total back pressure of from 17 to 19 lbs. per square inch. ’ It is 
much more than this at high piston speeds. 

If, however, the cylinder during exhaust were put into communica¬ 
tion with a condenser^ then a large portion of the atmosphere is removed 
and a back pressure of not more than 3 or 4 pounds absolute will now 
oppose the motion of the piston. 




«<«,»««<* SnoWIHQ <*lu- MmOt 

f ICj W 


40 

















In this case, the area of the diagram representing the effective work 
done, will extend down to within 3 pounds of the zero limit, Fig. 7 ; the 
gain of work being proportional to the gain of area, while the weight of 
steam is the same. The effective pressure equals the difference between 
pressures on each side of the piston. 

Steam is water in a gaseous condition, and when steam is cooled, it 
again returns to a liquid state and becomes water. Thus let a flask, A, 
contain a pound of water and fit a cork and glass tube to it as shown. 
Fig. 8, and connect it with a spiral tube surrounded by flowing cold 
water. Let the lower end of the tube pass 
into a vessel B. Boil the water in A, and it 
will pass off as steam by the tube G. to the 
spiral. Now the spiral or condensing tube 
being surrounded by cold water, it will extract 
a certain number of heat units from the steam, 
thereby condensing the steam into water, which 
will drop from the end of the tube. At the end 
of the operation, the loss of weight by A, is 
equal to the gain by B ., minus the small 
amount of impurities left in A. This illus¬ 
trates the process of distillation, and by this 

method pure water may be obtained from water containing impurities. 

Advantage was taken by the early engineers of this property of easy 
condensation, possessed by steam. They valued the steam not so much 
for its own sake, but because by condensation, they were able to utilize the 
pressure of the atmosphere in the performance of the work. 

A vacuum is literally an empty space, absolutely free from air or 
vapor of any kind, capable of exerting pressure. Vapor arises from 
water at all temperatures, and the lowness to which the pressure can be 
reduced, depends on the temperature of the condensed steam ; and this 
temperature in practice cannot economically be reduced below 102 degrees 
Fah., at which temperature the vapor of water exerts a pressure of one 
pound per square inch. The condensed steam vapor and air in condensers 

is removed by an air pump, and shown in 
Fig. 9. Now when the plunger A. is 
lifted, the valve B. will lift by virtue of 
the difference in pressure on the two 
„„„ sides of the valve. 

Assuming that we could obtain a per¬ 
fect vacuum in the pump chamber, yet 
the pressure per square inch in the con- 
denser G. can never fall below that neces- 

Pj- Q 

^ sarv to lift the valve, V. 

The secret of economy is in carrying out the principal as laid down 
by Watt, namely that the cylinder should be kept as hot as the steam that 
enters it; and engineers from Watt’s day to the present have striven to 
accomplish this result. 


{ 

<r 




41 



































INCANDESCENT LAMPS AND THEIR 
MANUFACTURE, 

BY 


JOHN W. HOWELL, 

Assistant Manager of Edison Lamp Works. 


The light giving body in an incandescent lamp is a carbon filament 
heated to white heat by a current of electricity. 

White hot carbon is the source of light in nearly all artificial il- 
luminants. 

The light of a gas flame comes from white hot molecules of carbon 
which are in the gas and which are heated to incandescence by the burn¬ 
ing gas. Candles and oil lamps are complete gas making plants, the heat 
of the flame evaporates the melted wax or oil producing a constant sup¬ 
ply of vapor or gas which is burned as fast as it is produced. 

Air is present in all these gas flames and the carbon molecules are 
consumed. If the air supply be insufficient, the carbon will not be en¬ 
tirely consumed and some of it will be set free in the air in the form of 
soot, which you have all seen on smoky lamp chimmeys. 

In the incandescent lamp as in the candle the source of light is the 
white hot carbon, the difference being ; the sources of heat, electricity 
in one case and the combustion of gas in the other ; and the permanence 
of the carbon in one case and its destruction in the other. 

The stability of the carbon filament at white heat in an incandes¬ 
cent lamp is the measure of its value, and to secure it is the problem 
which lamp makers have worked upon for fifteen years and which is still 
before them. This problem embodies a number of separate problems and 
as each of these approaches solution the main problem is modified by in¬ 
creasing the degree of heat at which the carbon is operated. 


42 




The four elements of an incandescent lamp are, the glass enclosing 
chambers, the carbon filament, the vacuum, and the connections between 
the carbon filament and the electric circuit. Each of these elements 
presents difficult problems to the lamp maker, and I do not hesitate 
to say that lamps as made to-day are capable of improvement in each one 
of these elements. 

The difficulty in making an incandescent lamp lies in the intimate 
association of these four elements and the impossibility of separating 
them for separate investigation. A defect which recently appeared in a 
new type of lamp was ascribed first to the vacuum, then to the glass cham¬ 
ber, then to the connections between filament and circuit, and it was only 
after the trouble had been definitely located in the mechanical construc¬ 
tion of the filament itself that the other elements were relieved from sus¬ 
picion. 

The difficulty of ascertaining the cause of any defect in lamps neces¬ 
sitates the strictest adherence to routine methods of manufacture. 

Slight changes in methods may produce most remarkable results and 
are made with the greatest caution. 

The most interesting points in lamp making are, making the fil¬ 
aments and exhausting the lamps, nearly all filaments are made with a 
cellulose or silk base and are finished by treatment in hydrocarbon gas- 
Bamboo has been very extensively use d in this country on account of its 
adaptability to being cut into uniform thin strips. Silk thread has also 
been successfully used. Cotton or paper wholly or partially dissolved 
and made into parchment like threads is now very generally used as the 
base of filaments, the advantages of this base are its cheapness and adapt¬ 
ability to being made into the forms desired. 

The cellulose threads are -wound on forms to give them the desired 
shapes and are carbonized by heating them to a white heat in a retort 
sealed up so no air can reach the inside. This process does not add car¬ 
bon to the thread, it simply changes the form of carbon already in it and 
drives off the volatile substances which were associated with it. The 
carbon filaments thus made retain the form of the threads but are much 
smaller and weigh much less. They are nearly pure carbon, are hard 
and elastic and where broken look like very hard anthracite coal. 

Before being used these filaments are “flashed” by heating them to 
high incandescence in hydrocarbon gas, this deposits hard dense gray 
carbon on them which renders them more stable and by stopping the 
“flashing” at the right time, the filaments are made of quite uniform re¬ 
sistance. 

The filaments are mounted on short flanged tubes which are inserted 
in the bulbs, the flange being fused in the open end of the bulb thus 
bringing the filament in its proper place in the bulb. 

The lamps are exhausted through small tubes sealed on their large 
ends, these tubes are attached to the vacuum pumps by rubber packing. 
The vacuum pump is a vertical straight glass tube about one-tenth of an 
inch bore and three feet long with a larger tube attached to its top, th< 
lamp is attached to the larger tube. A small stream of mercury falls 
down the larger tube and as it enters the small tube it traps the air and 


43 


carries it down the tube with it, at first large quantities of air are carried 
down. As the exhaustion proceeds the air bubbles going down the tube 
get smaller and smaller and finally becomes invisible the tube being then 
filled solid with mercury. Current is now applied to the filament and the 
heat sets free gases from the interior parts of the lamp, bubbles immedi¬ 
ately show agaiu in the pump tube and the application of current is- 
continued until the bubbles are no longer visible with the filament 
heated above its normal incandescence. The lamps are then sealed off 
by fusing off the glass tube close to the top of the bulb. 

After exhaustion the lamps are rigidly inspected for all defects. They 
are photometered to determine what circuit each one is adapted to and 
then based to suit the sockets of the customer ordering them. 

Before shipment, they are again rigidly inspected. They are put on 
racks and burned, first low to pick out spotted filaments which show 
better at low than at high heat ; and then at normal incandescence to 
detect differences due to bad photometer work. They are inspected for 
poor vacuum by the induction coils which indicates quite accurately the 
character of the vacuum. After this inspection they are packed for 
shipment. 

The performance of lamps both as to life and uniformity of candle 
power depends upon the temperature at which the filament is burned. 
The higher the temperature at which a filament is operated the more light 
it gives and the less current is required per candle of light. But while 
the economy of operation is increasing, the stability of the filament is 
decreasing. 

Carbon filaments are fusible, before they reach the fusing point the 
carbon softens. As the carbon reaches the softening condition, indicating 
an approach to the point of fusion, its molecules detach themselves more 
easily and fly to the globe in greater numbers, causing rapid blacking. 
The slightest weakness in the filament causes a strain which very soon 
breaks the filament at that poinfiby raising the temperature there higher 
than the rest of the filament. 

To operate high efficiency lamps, requires a very steady current as 
an accidental rise in the pressure may bring the filaments dangerously 
near the point of fusion. 

The temperature of a filament is indicated by the power required to 
produce a candle of light, lamps are commonly made to give one candle 
for from three to four watts. Three watt lamps are operated at a very high 
temperature, they should be used only where power and conductors are 
expensive and where the current is very steady. Four watt lamps are 
much more stable, they blacken very slowly and maintain a much more 
constant candle power. Their useful life is about four times as long as 
the three watt lamps and they are not so seriously affected by irregularities 
of current. The chart shows the relative stabilities of the three, three 
and one-half and four watt lamps. 

The irregular curve plotted on this chart shows the performance of 
the Edison lamps tested at the Franklin Institute Electrical Exhibition 
in 1884. A comparison of this curve and the curve of 3.6 watt lamps 
shows the advance made in lamps in the last ten years. 

44 


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46 





























































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































The second chart shows the performance of 3 watt lamps operated at 
normal pressure and at higher pressures. 

The effect of operating lamps two, four, six or eight volts above 
normal is to make the lamps much brighter at first, but they actually 
give less light after two hundred hours than the lamps operated at normal 
pressure. This makes a great difference between new and old lamps and 
shortens the useful life of lamps very materially. 

Nearly all lamps increase in candle power at first and fall more or 
less rapidly afterward, this first increase is due to the improvement of the 
vacuum as the lamp is burned, new lamps have a little gas in the bulbs 
which is slowly absorbed by the warm glass. While the gas is present it 
cools the filament by conduction. As the gas is absorbed the conduction 
is less, the filament gets hotter and gives more light. The later fall in 
candle power had several causes. The molecules of carbon which are 
thrown from the white hot, semi-soft filament darken the glass and 
obscure the light. Another cause is the increased resistance of the fila¬ 
ment which diminishes the current and consequently cools the filament 
just as lowering the pressure will cool it. 

Another cause is the change in the surface of the filament which 
makes it a better radiator of heat. This cools the filament by allowing 
heat to radiate from the filament which previously was retained in it. 
The cooling of the filament from these causes is the chief cause of its loss 
of candle power. This cooling also preserves the life of the filament. 
If three watt filaments did not lose candle power and cool off, but were 
kept at the high temperature at which they were started, they would not 
last nearly as long as they do. Consequently, we expect any improve¬ 
ment which gives the lamp a better candle power curve, to shorten its 
life unless the stability of the carbon is correspondingly improved. 


47 


“ELECTRICAL DISTRIBUTION’’ 


BY 

WM. C. L. EGLIN, 

Chief of Eeectricae Department. 


Although I have not the pleasure of presenting to you such a fasci¬ 
nating subject as we had the pleasure of listening to on last Friday even¬ 
ing, nevertheless it is very important that we should have a clear under¬ 
standing of the methods of distribution of Electrical Energy and of the 
various apparatus that utilize it. 

Our principal difficulty in mastering the actions of Electrical Energy 
is due to the fact that we do not possess an electrical sense. We can all 
tell the difference between heat and cold and a push or a pull ; but no one 
can tell either by touch or sight the difference between a positive or neg • 
ative current of electricity, except by the effects they produce on other 
objects. Few of us realize that most of our knowledge has been gained 
by practical experiments. How did you find whether iron or wood was 
the heaviest? By lifting each or by balancing in scales. Numerous ex¬ 
amples could be taken from every-day life. 

The same is also true about Electricity, and you will never learn 
much about it until you make a number of simple experiments ; and for 
this reason, I will endeavor to demonstrate to you this evening by prac¬ 
tical examples some of the various methods used to distribute and utilize 
Electrical Energy. 

The simplest form of transmitting Electrical Energy is from a storage 
battery. The energy is stored in the battery and carried to the point of 
distribution. 

The attempt has been made to distribute electricity by maans of 
storage batteries, located in the consumers premises. The batteries were 
charged at a Central Station, and afterwards delivered to consumers by 
means of wagons, and served like the other necessaries of life. There 


48 



are many practical objections to this method, particularly the amount of 
handling that is necessary, and the expense of collecting and afterwards 
distributing the batteries. The first cost for batteries is also very large, 
as each consumer’s battery must be large enough to carry the maximum 
load of that individual consumer, whereas were the same number of 
consumers supplied from a central station, the load to be supplied by the 
station would be an average load, which in practice rarely exceeds 50 per 
•cent, of the lamps connected. Storage batteries are now receiving care¬ 
ful attention from central station managers as an auxiliary supply. The 
batteries being charged during the time of light load on the station, and 
discharged either as an auxiliary to the dynamos carrying part of the load 
during the time of a short heavy load, or they may be used to carry the 
load during the day in stations when the day load is light or at night after 
the heavy load has gone off. The load diagrams of most lighting stations 
show a high maximum, covering a period of about an hour, as storage 
batteries may be discharged at a very high rate for a short time without 
danger ; they may be used to advantage in such cases. The question of 
the cost of the batteries and maintenance, is the principal one in deciding 
whether they should be used or not. The battery must cost less than the 
machinery required for the same output, because the loss in the battery 
is about 20 per cent, of the energy supplied to it, or, in other words, you 
must generate 20 per cent, more electricity if you distribute by means of 
storage batteries as compared to direct distribution. 

I11 transmitting energy of any kind from one point to another, there 
is always some loss depending on the resistance offered, this loss is made 
manifest in the form of heat. As an example, in a line of shafting 
there is a certain amount of energy lost in heating of the bearings. 

If the bearings are large enough and the surface smooth, the heat 
from the energy lost at this point will be radiated by the metal as fast as 
it is produced ; but if the bearing is tightened so as to form a high resist¬ 
ance, it will become excessively hot; or if the bearing is too small, so 
that the heat generated is not radiated as fast as produced, it will also 
become excessively hot. This is exactly what takes place in electrical 
transmission of energy, the only difference being that we express the loss 
in electrical terms. The current flowing in any conductor, squared mul¬ 
tiplied by the resistance of the conductor represents the actual power 
lost. 

I have on this board an example. In this piece of wire I have intro¬ 
duced a wire having a high electrical resistance, so that if I send a current 
over it, the result will be a great deal more heat generated at the point of 
the high resistance wire. I have also a small conductor, which when a 
large current is passed over it, will become red hot and then fuse. 

The other example is a wire insulated likes the wires in every day use. 
You see that when a large amount of current is forced over this wire that 
the insulation immediately fires, showing you one of the dangers that 
must be avoided, and that the wires must be large enough to carry the 
current without undue heating, and be properly protected with safety 
fuses. 




\ 


49 


The resistance of a wire depends upon its length and inversely as its 
cross section, that is to say, the longer the wire the greater its resistance; 
and the smaller in cross section, the greater the resistance. The heat de¬ 
veloped is equal to the current squared, multiplied by the resistance of 
the conductor multiplied by the time. 

It might be supposed that a bare wire would remain cooler than a 
covered one, but this is not so ; and the reason is that the air is a very 
bad conductor of heat, and although the materials used to cover w T iresare 
not good conductors of heat, they are very much better than air ; and as 
the surface exposed by the insulation is much larger than the wire, more 
heat is radiated. Another form of electrical resistance is Counter Electro- 
Motive Force which means an electrical pressure opposing the current. 
The effective pressure in such a case would depend on the initial pressure 
minus the opposing pressure. 

This form of resistance is sometimes called spurious resistance to dis¬ 
tinguish it from ohmic or true resistance. Take as an example of this form 
of resistance an electric motor, and consider the effect of sending electricity 
through such a piece of apparatus. A motor briefly consists of an electric 
magnet and a few turns of wire wound on an iron core and mounted on a 
shaft so that it is free to move between the poles of the magnet Oeisted 
discovered that when a wire carrying an electric current was placed near a 
magnet, there was an attraction between the wire and the magnet tending 
to move the wire in the direction of the lines of force of the magnet. Lines 
of force are imaginary lines between the poles of the magnet, and are used 
to express the intensity of magnetism and the direction of the force. If 
the current is varied in the coils, the armature, as the moving part is 
called, so that when one coil reaches the point parallel to the lines of force,, 
the current is reduced to zero ; the armature will rotate and when the 
variations are made continuous by means of a commutator, the motion 
is continuous as long as electricity is supplied. 

Lenz’s law says that the direction of the currents set up by electro 
magnet induction, is always such as tend to oppose the motion producing 
them. It is the converse of the law which we apply to motors, that the 
motion produced is always such as tend to stop the current. When the 
motor is at rest there is no magneto electric induction so the current flow¬ 
ing would depend only on the resistance of the ware on the armature, 
and as this in practice is very small, the amount flowing would be excessive. 
Now as the motor increases in speed, the magneto electric induction 
increases, and as this current is an opposite direction, the current flowing 
through the armature is reduced. In starting a motor we must intro¬ 
duce an extra resistance in the armature circuit, or in other words, lengthen 
the wire in armature ; as the speed of the armature increases, increasing 
the counter Electro Motive Force, the wire in the external resistance is 
gradually cut out until the machine has reached its working speed. 

I have here a motor with a starting box, as the extra resistance is 
called, which is automatic in its actions, and insures the resistance always 
being in circuit when the armature is at rest. The advantage of using 
such a starting box is that the current may be turned on or off the motor 
from any point without giving it any further attention. 

50 





Some of the uses of this device are operating elevators, machines, 
pumps and other machinery which is operated at intervals and at a dis¬ 
tance from the points of control. 


In reasoning the various electrical questions you must act very simi¬ 
larly as you would were you required to speak in a foreign language, 
in which case you would think in English and speak in the foreign 
tongue. So it is in electrical questions ; you must compare the points 
under consideration to other well known means and express yourself in 
electrical terms, and for this reason I will compare the methods of elec¬ 
trical distribution of energy to water distribution of energy. 

The manner in which our lamps and motors or other apparatus are 
connected to the dynamo may be divided into two classes, series and 
multiple arc or parallel. What is meant by a series connection is, that 
the total current flowing into the conductor passes through each piece of 
apparatus connected to the generator ; and the amount of energy used 
by each piece of apparatus so connected will depend on the amount of 
curient passed through it in Amperes multiplied by the difference in. 
pressure in volts between the points of entering and leaving the appa¬ 
ratus. 


51 













In this diagram of the water analogue we have a rotary pump and three 
turbine wheels, which are equivalent to dynamos and motors or lamps, 
connected to the same pipe with vertical pipes A. B. C. Sf B., connected 
to the points of entering and leaving of each wheel. You will see that 
as long as the pump remains stationery, these is no difference of pressure 
between any of the pipes connected to the inlet and outlet of the turbines. 
As soon as the pump is moved the water is drawn from the lower pipe 
and forced into the upper pipe. 

Series Water analogue. 




The different pressures then between the various turbines is shown 
by the line L. i., L. 2., L. 4. You will see that in this method that the 
total difference in pressure L. 1. to L. 4. is the pressure required to force 
the water against the combined resistance of all the turbines. 

In apparatus connected in multiple arc or parallel only part of the 
current passes through each piece of apparatus and the pressure remains 
constant, or in other words, the current is split up in proportions depend¬ 
ing on the resistance of the various pieces of apparatus so connected. I 
use the word “apparatus” because the same s}'stems are applicable to 
incandescent lamps, arc lamps, motors or miscellaneous instruments. 

Referring to diagram No. 2, showing the multiple arc water analogue. 
In the first figure the pump is at rest and each turbine wheel has an in¬ 
dependent connection to the pump. The two tubes H. and O. are 
connected to the lower or return and the tubes E . and L. to the upper or 
pressure pipe. As long as the pump is stationary, there is no difference 
of pressure in the upper or lower pipes. 

In figure 2 we have the conditions with pump in action. The pres¬ 
sure in the pipe H, is the lowest, and the difference in level between 
H and G is the amount lost in the return pipe. The difference in level 
between E and F is the amount lost in the outgoing pipe. The difference 


52 





































in pressure between L2 and Z3 is the actual working pressure of the last 
turbine. You will see that shutting off one or more of these turbines 
does not prevent the others from running, the only effect it produces is to 
lessen the difference of pressure between Li and L2, and Z3 and Z4, or 
in other words, reduces the loss in transmission. 

MULTIPLE-ARC WATER ANALCE-UE 



These two methods, series and parallel, are arranged in many com¬ 
binations wdiich readily present themselves when occasion arises. 

You would probably ask, what is the use of the series system and 
what are its advantages, as compared with the parallel system? The ad¬ 
vantages of connecting in series is that the size of the conductor remains 
the same, independent of the number of lamps or other apparatus attached. 
That is, the wire should be made large enough to carry one lamp and the. 
pressure increased for each additional lamp added. The limit to the 
number of lamps connected in series depends only on the safe electrical 
pressure, which is rather a disputed point; about 2000 volts is the highest 
used in general practice. There have been one or two cases in w 7 hich 
much higher voltages have been used. 

The principal reason for the use of series connection is on account of 
its cheapness. You can easily see that it is by far the simplest and 
cheapest method to convey the energy from the point of supply to the 
apparatus. The disadvantages, however, in many cases more than 
counter-balance the advantages. 

When pressures of over 500 or 600 volts are used, thev are dangerous 
to persons and animals. I am sorry to say, however, that danger to life 
is not considered very seriously by many people, so that other objections 
must be found. The real fault in this system is, that if at any point in 
the chain of connections there is a break, the whole system fails. 

I have in my hand 8 lamps connected in series. As each requires 
only a low Electro Motive Force, the total Electro Motive Force is not 
dangerous, being only no volts. You will see as I turn one lamp off, 
the other seven also go out. 

A number of methods have been devised for completing the cir¬ 
cuit in the event of the carbon in the incandescent lamp breaking. It 
has been found, however, that there are many difficulties of a practical 


53 
























nature that arise in a series system of incandescent lighting, and to-day . 
they are rapidly going out of use. 

In arc lighting the problem is much simpler, as the current is greater 
and a slight increase in pressure, due to one or two lamps being cut out, 
has little effect on the others. The dynamos for series working arc lamps 
are usually self regulating, so that they respond quickly to the difference 
in resistance of the outside circuit or load. 

In the parallel system of connections, each lamp is practically inde¬ 
pendent and the main conductor must be increased in cross section for 
each additional lamp added. By this method you have perfect control of 
each lamp. 

In the parallel arrangement the current is increased for each addi¬ 
tional piece of apparatus connected. Now as we add on the lamps or 
motors, you will see our currents become very great. The loss in con¬ 
veying electricity from one point to another, as we have already seen, 
depends on the current squared multiplied by the resistance of the con¬ 
ductor, so that in parallel distribution the resistance of the conductor 
must be small, or in other words we must use a large conductor. 

The Edison three-wire system of distribution is a combination of a 
series and multiple arc arrangement, and possesses the decided advantage 
that the same number of lamps may be supplied with of the weight of 
copper required by the two-wire multiple arc method ; and it also pos¬ 
sesses all the advantages regarding control of each light independently, 
and it it is free from danger to life, as the greatest difference of pressure 
in any part of the system is only about 230 volts. 

In the diagram 3, we have the water analogue, there are two pumps 
so arranged that the water from the one discharges into the other or 
raises the pressure of the second pump’s supply, thus increasing the 
pressure of combined arrangement to the sum of these separate pressures. 

Connected to the supply and discharge pipe of each pump are turbine 
wheels. The pipes AGE and FEU , are pressure tubes. Fig. 1 the 
pumps are at rest, and the water level the same in each pipe, so that there 
is no motion of the turbine wheels. 

Fig. 2. The pumps are in operation. The difference of levels, Li 
and L$ is the same as L2 and Z5, so that the turbine wheels between 
these levels will revolve. The current, however, does return directly to 
the pump supplying it, as there is still a difference of pressure between 
the discharge end of the upper turbine and the discharge end of the lower 
turbine, this water will flow through the lower turbine and operate it, 60 
that the same current operates both turbines. If, however, one of the 
wheels is shut off in either the upper or lower set; or in other words, if 
they are unbalanced, the difference in balance is supplied by the middle 
pipe. The difference in levels Li and L2 and L5 and L6 is the pressure 
lost in transmission. 

The point which must receive attention in the three-wire system, is 
the balancing must be as nearly uniform as possible, and the connection of 
the middle or neutral wire must not be broken before the outside wires. 
Should the middle or neutral wire, as it is called, be broken and the lamps 


54 



04 



55 


WIRE SYSTEM WATER ANALOGUE. 






































be unevenly balanced between the two outside wires, the current from the 
greater number of lamps would be forced through the smaller, making 
the current greater in the smaller number of lamps and destroying the 
filaments. This is avoided in practice by making the neutral fuse twice 
the size of either of the outside wires. 

Diagrams 4 show the losses in lamps arranged on the two-wire or 

three-wire system. 

Since we know that the loss in transmission depends on the current 
squared multiplied by the resistance of the conductor, by referring to the 
diagram we see that the current required to supply 10 lamps arranged on 
the three-wire system is half that required by the two-wire system. The 
loss would be one-quarter in the three wire system compared to the two- 
wire. 

Example 10 lamps each requiring one ampere of current. 

Doss two wire system, 10 squared X R — 100 X R* 

Loss three wire system, 5 squared X R = 2 5 X R- 

R equals resistance of conductor. 

As three wires of X the cross section are to be compared to two wires. 
The total cross section is of the two-wire system. 


+ 



-i- 




56 



































BOILER FEED APPARATUS FOR ELECTRIC 
LIGHT STATIONS. 

BY 

WILLIAM. M. BARR, 

Consulting Engineer. 


In the paper which I shall read to you this evening on the mechan¬ 
ism for feeding steam boiiers, I shall not enter upon a historical sketch 
of the subject, but shall confine myself to the description of the modern 
steam pump, corresponding as nearly as possible to just such a machine 
as you will be called upon to use in your daily round of duty. 

The site for a power station having been selected, the H. P. of the 
boilers having also been determined upon, the quantity of water required 
for evaporation, and for other purposes ; is easily arrived at. In round num¬ 
bers one cubic foot of water supply is commonly provided for each I. H. P. 
for such steam plants as do not employ very large engines of the com¬ 
pound or triple expansion type. An ordinary high-speed, direct-coupled 
engine,fitted with either a flat slide valve or a piston valve for steam dis¬ 
tribution, the valve driven and controlled by a shaft governor will require 
at a fair average 30 pounds of water for each indicated horse power per 
hour. 

As a cubic foot of water weighs 62 X pounds there is left an apparent 
surplus of a little more than the water allowance, part of which is to 
be applied to operating the boiler feed pumps and to make good unavoid¬ 
able waste. 

It will be seen that under all ordinary conditions the water allowance 
is ample, even under what might be considered disadvantageous ones. 

A water supply of good quality is a desirable adjunct to any steam plant, 
it rarely happens, however, that a steam plant can be made to accommo¬ 
date itself in the matter of location to that of water supply, nor is this 
very important except in those cases in which condensing engines are 

57 



employed ; such a location may, perhaps, be secured in a suburban station,, 
but not within city limits, so that recourse must be had to a surface well, 
or perhaps a bored well, commonly called an artesian well, in case the 
ordinary hydrant or city water is not to be used. If a surface well is em¬ 
ployed the w r ater level is usually within the limits of suction, in which 
case a boiler feed pump can be used to lift its own water as well as force 
it into the boiler. 

In the case of deeper surface wells, and for bored wells, a separate lift 
pump is commonly used specially adapted for deep well pumping, the 
delivery being into a tank, which may, for greater convenience in fire pro¬ 
tection, be placed above the roof of the building, an arrangement wdiich 
serves an equally useful purpose when cleaning out the boilers. The 
boiler feed pump can receive its supply from this overhead tank, but a 
better arrangement is to have a small cistern near the pump, below the 
engine or boiler room floor. This cistern should be lined and floored 
with brick, and cemented water tight. 

If the water supply be from a pond or stream, there should be a 
strainer box at the outer end of the suction pipe to keep out floating 
matter such as twigs, leaves, etc. 

Water Analyses may be thought to be foreign to the subject in band, 
but a few words by way of recommendation or advice, simply 
this : Water from a new well, whether a shallow well consisting largely 
of surface drainage, or from a bored well extending to a lower water 
bearing stratum, should be analyzed by a competent chemist; the result 
of the analysis will have an important bearing upon the care and manage¬ 
ment of the boiler. The principal impurities in feed water are the 
carbonates of lime and magnesia, occasionally, however, the sulphates 
are in solution instead, the latter are much more difficult to deal with 
than the former. 

Gritty water is always troublesome unless a large settling tank or 
pond is conveniently near, in lieu of this, a pressure filter may be used, 
but this is another story. 

The requirements of a boiler feed pump are simply to take the water 
from the supply and deliver it into the boiler under pressure. The pump 
should be simple, easily managed, and certain in its operation. Inde¬ 
pendent steam pumps must be capable of working at varying speeds if 
used for other purposes than feeding steam boilers, and must, whenever 
required, run at a constant speed suited to the rate of evaporation going 
on in the boilers. 

The manufacture of steam pumps is a specialized industry, the engi¬ 
neer has, therefore, little else than a choice of variety and size. 

A plunger pump is, perhaps, oftener selected for boiler feeding than any 
other kind. The simplest form is a solid plunger working through a 
solid, ring, the plunger is commonly made of cast iron, the ring of 
brass. The latter is made non-adjustable and centers the plunger by 
fitting in a bored recess in the pump chamber, this arrangement works 
vrith very little friction. Unless the water is very gritty, such a combi¬ 
nation of plunger and ring will wear a long time, and has proven very 

58 


satisfactory. Hot and cold water can be pumped equally - well, 
Fig. i12. 





m\\\\\\\w\\^ 


'3SSSSSSS 


ssssssssssss 




Fig. 112. 

A packed plunger pump is seldom selected for a boiler feed, it posesses 
no advantage over the ordinary plunger and ring, unless the water con¬ 
tains an unusual amount of grit or mud. Packed plungers are fitted with 
stuffing boxes and glands adapted for fibrous packing similar to that used 
for steam piston rods. This arrangement is well suited for pumping cold 
water, but the friction is much greater than when a plain ring is used. 
For pumping very hot water there is always more or less trouble in keep¬ 
ing the stuffing boxes tight, as the packing is liable to soften under the 
action of the heat, but with proper care and close attention to minor 
leaks, the performance of such a water end can be made satisfactory. An 

59 




































































































inside packed plunger pump is one in which the packing box is inside of 
the water cylinder ; an outside packed plunger pump is fitted with stuff¬ 
ing boxes on the outside of the water end, a portion of the plunger being 
always exposed to the atmosphere. 

Piston pumps are not so generally selected for feeding steam boilers 
as are plunger pumps. Small water ends are generally bushed with brass 
tubing pressed or driven into place and caulked tight at the ends to pre¬ 
vent end motion. The pistons are adapted for the use of fibrous packing, 
and occasionally they are fitted with metal rings, these latter are seldom 
satisfactory in practice, especially if the water is gritty; for pumping 
very hot water metal rings become almost a necessity, because of the 
destructive action of the hot water upon the fibrous packing. 

A direct acting pump is one in which the piston rod is continuous 
from the steam piston to that of the plunger or piston of the water end, 
all three moving together as a single piece. Such pumps may be either 
single or duplex. When properly designed and built they are compact, 
efficient, durable, and sell at a very moderate price. The objection to all 
direct acting pumps as a class is their want of economy in the use of 
steam, there being no stored up energy as in the case of- a fly wheel, the 
steam pressure must be as great at the moment of exhaust as at the be¬ 
ginning of the stroke, and this, as is well known to all steam engineers, 
is a most extravagant and wasteful method of using steam ; fortunately 
the quantity of steam thus used is so small in proportion to that required 
eisewhere about the power plant that it can be spared without serious 
loss. Figs. 171 and 172. 



The relation of steam cylinder area to that of water plunger area varies 
from 2 to 1, to 3 to 1. In a direct acting pump it really makes but little 
difference which ratio is selected, because the steam pressure must be 
throttled down to that required to overcome the boiler pressure, the 
losses occurring within the pump itself, and the friction of the water 
through the pipes and valves on its way to the boiler ; but, on general 
principles, if a 2 to 1 ratio will do the work satisfactorily there is no 
reason why a larger steam cylinder should be used, with its larger ports, 
and larger radiating surface. 


60 













































































































The capacity of a pump is commonly rated at the number of gallons 
of water it will deliver per minute—the piston speed is generally as¬ 
sumed to be ioo per minute, it is also assumed that the pump makes its 
full stroke continuouly without loss. It may be a gratuitous bit of infor¬ 
mation to say to you that direct acting boiler feed pumps scarcely, if ever, 
run at that piston speed continuously, and as for making a full stroke, this 
can hardly be assumed to be true, especially in the case of duplex pumps ; 
it will be well, therefore, when consulting a catalogue of trade pumps, 
especially for the smaller sizes, to scale down the rating from 30 to 50 per 
cent, when selecting a boiler feed pump. 



One cubic foot of fresh water equals approximately 7^ U. S. gallons 
of 231 cubic inches. The weight of a U. S. gallon of fresh water is 8.32 
pounds. To acertain the capacity of a pump, multiply the area of the 
plunger in inches, by its length of stroke, also in inches, multiply the 
product by the number of strokes per minute, and divide by 231, which 
will give the displacement in gallons per minute; from this, certain 
deductions must be made for non-filling at each stroke, and, in s the case of 
direct acting pumps, for the shortening up of the strokes at each end of 
the pump. This allowance is one which each must judge for himself 
but it will be found to range anywhere from 10 to 25 per cent. The speed 
of a boiler feed pump will, in actual practice, rarely exceed 50 feet per 
minute, or half the tabulated speed given in trade catalogues. 

Water valves. The question of valve area is an important one, be¬ 
cause upon it, more than anything else depends the speed at which a 
pump can be noiselessly run. An ordinary trade pump, such as would 
be selected for feeding steam boilers, should have a clear water way 
through the suction valve seats, at each end of the pump, of not less than 
40 per cent, of the plunger area; the water way through the delivery 

6l 
















































valve seats need not be so large by io to 15 per cent., but the com¬ 
mon practice is to make both sets of valves alike. The object sought 
in having large water ways through the valve seats is to afford ample 
freedom for the water to flow into the pump, the importance of this will 
be understood when it is known that the flow of water into the pump is 
due only to atmospheric pressure, and that the flow is interrupted upon 
each return stroke of the plunger. 

The lift of a valve is dependent in a measure upon the valve area, for 
the same plunger speed the larger the opening through the suction valve 
seat, the less will be the lift of the valve. Two things are thus secured ; 
a prompt and complete filling of the pump chamber with water from the 
suction chamber, and a noiseless action of the valves in seating. 

Cold water valves , Fig. 55, 
should be made of pure Para 
gum sufficiently vulcanized to 
make them firm without losing 
elasticity. The best way to get 
the best valves is to order only 
such from reputable manufac¬ 
turers, who can be relied upon 
to furnish a first-class article. 
The temptation to adulteration 
in mixtures of rubber for pump 
valves cannot always, appar¬ 
ently, be successfully withstood 
and the result is, a poor valve. 
The makers of valves are not 
wholly to blame for this, buyers 
who insist upon getting a dollar valve for fifty cents can generally be 
accommodated, in outward resemblance at least; but this is poor economy 
at best, and may lead to serious consequences at a time when least 
expected. 

A valve jrtate, which is simply a disc of sheet brass, a little larger in 
diameter than the openings through the valve seat, should be placed 
on the back of each soft rubber valve, it adds very much to the stiffness 
of the valve, it is a means of distributing the pressure of the spring above 
it over a larger area, and prevents the action of the spring wearing a 
circular groove in the top of the valve. 

Hot water valves made of rubber, to which has been added in addition 
to the vulcanizing agent, another substance probably graphite, makes a 
very hard valve, having little or no elasticity, and is not liable to soften¬ 
ing when used for pumping hot water. These valves being inelastic re¬ 
quire to be ground or scraped to their seats in the same manner as metal 
valves. Their use is not recommended except for hot water for which 
they are admirably adapted. 

A metal disc valve can be made to take the place of an ordinary rubber 
valve. It needs only to be of the same diameter and made to fit the 
spindle upon which it slides, provision being made for receiving the same 

62 



















spring designed for the rubber valve. The under side of the metal disc 
should be recessed slightly that it shall have a bearing only at its outer 
and inner edges, the intervening space spanning the grids of the valve 
seat without touching. Metal valves and seats must be fitted by scraping 
or grinding each to the other. The best plan is to scrape either the valve 
or seat to a face plate and then fit the other to it. 

Valve springs should be made of a hard brass spring wire and not of 
steel. The diameter may approximate one-half that of the valve. The 
spring should have not less than five coils. Conical springs are not as 
durable as those cylindrically wound, because in compressing the strain 
is not equally distributed throughout its length but concentrated usually 
on the two upper coils. 

Air chambers. A single pump should have a large air chamber to 
relieve the pipes from the shock which occurs at each reversal of the 

pump ; when working under high pressures, and at 
a moderately fast speed, say ioo feet per minute, 
the capacity of the air chamber should be, say 3 
times the displacement of the plunger at each stroke. 
The best form of air chamber for a boiler feed 
pump is that of an inverted cone, Fig. 87, that is to 
say, a small connection at the pump and a large 
chamber above it. Such an air chamber is best 
made of copper. For a duplex pump the size need 
not be more than half the above, indeed good re¬ 
sults are had with duplex boiler feed pumps in 
which air chambers have been omitted altogether, 
this is due to the fact that in duplex pumps the 
motion of one plunger begins immediately upon 
the stoppage of the other, making an almost con¬ 
tinuous delivery. 

The steam end of a pump is hedged about by many exacting require¬ 
ments—and especially is this true of single pumps. A properly designed 
steam end must be capable of working fast or slow, with light or heavy 
load, it must make full stroke under all conditions of service, it must be 
free of everything in the nature of trappy fixtures liable to get out of ad¬ 
justment. Nearly all single direct-acting steam ends are made with an 
auxiliary piston, this piston has its own steam valve operated directly 
from and usually in the same direction as that of the steam piston and 
water plunger. This auxiliary piston then has a movement directly 
opposite that of the main piston and by its movement, the main steam 
valve is carried across the ports of the main cylinder, and thus reverses 
the movement of the main steam piston. A close examination of the 
ports, valves, etc., of any make of steam end, having a steam thrown 
valve, will show that the whole train of mechanism, when under steam 
pressure, is in unstable equilibrium, and it is this quality which makes it 
useful in operating a pump. 

The movement of steam thrown valves not being positive, they are 
as a class regarded as having an inferential movement, and in using th 

63 





term no disparagement attaches to what may be regarded as an excellent 
device for the purposes under consideration. By reason of this inferen¬ 
tial movement, it is desirable that the pump make as few reversals as 
possible, and it is largely because of this fact that single pumps are made 
with long strokes. 

A duplex pump consists of two steam pumps of equal dimensions, 
placed side by side, with the valve motion so designed that the movement 
of the steam piston of each pump shall have the controlling movement 
of the slide-valve of its opposite pump, the effect of which is to allow 
one piston to proceed to the end of the stroke, and gradually come to a 
state of rest; during the latter part of this movement the opposite piston 
then moves forward in its stroke, and also gradually comes to a state of 
rest; but in its forward movement, and before reaching the end of its 
stroke, the slide-valve controlling the first piston is reversed, and in con¬ 
sequence the first piston returns to its original position, and in nearing 
the end of its stroke it, in a similar manner, reverses the slide-valve 
controlling the second piston ; these movements are both uniform and 
continuous so long as steam is supplied to the pistons. 

A noticeable feature, and one seldom seen in other than a duplex 
steam pump cylinder, is that it is constructed with five ports; the two 
outer ports are for the admission of steam into the cylinder, the two inner 
ones are for the exhaust from the ends of the cylinder into the exhaust 
cavity of the slide valve, and the central one is for conveying the exhaust 
into the atmosphere. • The slide valve has neither lap nor lead on either 
the steam or exhaust sides. There is always a certain amount of lost 
motion between the valve nut and the jaws on the back of the steam valve, 
given for the purpose of equalizing the length of stroke of the steam 
pistons on the two sides of a duplex pump. This lost motion is experi¬ 
mentally determined by the manufacturer and should never be interfered 
with, the amount of lost motion varies in boiler feed pumps from Y to 
Yz of an inch, and may not be exactly alike on both steam cylinders. 

A common fault of duplex boiler feed pumps is that of shorting up 
in the length of stroke, for example, a pump having io inch stioke may 
through one cause or another shorten up to 9 inches or less. It is very 
important, therefore, that, the piston and valve rods be loosely packed, 
and that all the working parts shall be as free from binding strains as 
possible. 

The steam pistons may be of any approved design, but broad rings 
should be used in duplex pumps, because the pistons travel over the ex¬ 
haust ports, narrow rings are liable to work into the exhaust openings in 
case the ends of the rings should in any case be on the top of the piston. 

The compounding of steam cylinders for boiler feed pumps is not often 
required, in fact compounding is not recommended for the steam end of 
any pump unless the service is nearly continuous, and not then unless 
the pressure in the high pressure cylinder is at least 50 pounds. Com¬ 
pounding the steam end of a direct acting pump under favorable condi¬ 
tions may result in a gain of 25 to 35 per cent. Except in the case of 
very large power stations there will be scarcely anything gained by com* 


64 














































































































































































































































pounding and the increased cost over an ordinary pump will be con¬ 
siderable. 

Crank and Fly Wheel Pumps , Fig. 148, are more economical in the 
use of steam than direct acting pumps, for the reason that the steam 
does not follow full stroke ; the maximum point of cut-off in plain slide 
valve engines is at about % of the stroke from the beginning. There can 
be no shortening up of the stroke, as is often the case with direct acting 
pumps, because the crank movement insures a fixed travel of the piston 
for each revolution of the shaft, this insures less waste by clearance in the 
steam cylinders, and a larger displacement in the water end. Pumps 
of this description are easily had, in the market in both vertical and hor¬ 
izontal patterns. For the same capacity they are higher priced than di¬ 
rect acting pumps, because they weigh more and require more labor in 
fitting ; so that, in the matter of materials and labor alone, they fail of 
a wider market simply on the question of price. 

A power pump is the most economical pump to use so far as expend¬ 
iture of steam is concerned, because being driven by one of the main 
engines it shares in whatever economy that engine may possess. In 
power stations having a line shaft, it is an easy matter to erect a counter 
shaft for driving a power pump provided there is space enough to get in 
the proper reducing mechanism. In power stations supplied only with 
high speed engines and direct connected generators, power pumps cannot 
be operated so conveniently, and would not, in all probability, be selected. 
Power pumps are usually of the plunger pattern, from one to three single 
acting plungers working through outside stuffing boxes ; a three plunger 
pump, with the crank set at an angle of 120° to each other will deliver a 
stream of water more nearly constant in its flow than any other kind of 
pump except a rotary. 

As power pumps can only be used in connection with other engines 
in motion, they are not as desirable as self contained pumps, and their 
use is very much restricted for this reason. 

An Artisian well pump , more correctly, perhaps, a deep well pump, 
consists of a vertical steam cylinder having its piston operated by some 
form of steam thrown valve gear, the piston rod passing through a 
stuffing box at the top of the well tubing, and extending down, whatever 
the depth, to a single acting pump located at or near the bottom of the 
well. The steam cylinder does not differ essentially from those used on 
other single pumps, except as to a greater length of stroke. This cylin¬ 
der is supported on standards high enough to admit of a coupling between 
the steam and water stuffing boxes, the complete steam end is generally 
mounted on a base plate fitted to a lower base, are so arranged that the 
steam cylinder may be moved out of line and thus permit the withdrawal 
of the pump rod together with its lower bucket and valve. The pump 
bucket is usually furnished with a ball valve in a cage, a similar valve 
being located immediately below the stroke of the upper bucket acting 
as the suction valve to the pump. 

The bucket is commonly provided with two or more cup leather 
packings to insure tightness on the up stroke. A check valve is sometimes 

66 


but not always, provided at the surface delivery. If the water is to flow 
into a cistern in the ground a check valve is not needed, but if the de¬ 
livery is to be into a tank on top of the building a check valve should be 
provided at the pump base, the addition of an air chamber above the 
check valve will greatly lessen the shock in the vertical pipe. The pump 
rods for deep well pumps should be made of straight grained ash, with 
wrought iron screw couplings, in preference to sections of wrought iron 
pipe coupled together as the pipe threads are too fine to withstand that 
kind of service. 

Piping a pump to the sizes indicated by the tapped holes, or flanges 
furnished by the manufacturer, will yield satisfactory results so far as 
areas are concerned. 

The suction pipe needs especial attention, it should for obvious rea¬ 
sons, be as short and direct as possible. The water flows into the suction 
chamber of the pump by atmospheric pressure only; Each bend, or 
change in direction, has a retarding effect, and prevents that readiness of 
flow so desirable in pumping operations. 

An air leak in a suction pipe will soon destroy whatever vacuum is 
formed within it by the pump plunger, with the one result of failure until 
this air can be expelled. It is a common practice and a good one, to 
provide the bottom of the suction pipe with a foot valve, and, where oc¬ 
casion requires a strainer as well. 

A side pipe and strainer , is sometimes used instead, in this case the 
side pipe attaches directly to the suction opening of the pump, the 
strainer being within this pipe and accessible by simply removing a 
flanged plate on the top of the side pipe. The strainer is simply a wire 
cloth cylinder open on the top and closed at the bottom. Twigs, leaves, 
grass, fish, etc. lodge in this basket like strainer, and are easily removed. 

A vacuum chamber is a useful addition to a suction pipe, especially 
in the case of a high lift, or in case of a long and crooked suction pipe 
being unavoidable. The vacuum chamber should be as near the pump 
as possible ; it is immaterial whether it connects directly with the suc¬ 
tion pipe or not, if more con venient it may be attached directly to the water 
end itself: Many water ends have two suction openings, in which case 
the vacuum chamber may be bolted to the opening opposite that o$ the 
suction pipe. The size of a vacuum ohamber should be about twice that 
of a single displacement of a water cylinder for a single pump. The 
effect of a vacuum chamber is to take away from the suction chamber of 
the pump, the water hammer and other disturbing influences consequent 
upon a continuous flow into it, and from which the withdrawal of the 
water is intermittent. The air in the vacuum chamber forms an elastic 
cushion which will receive the excess of flow without noise, and give it 
out as silently as it received it. The air is thus partially expanded and 
compressed at each wave or impulse of the water flowing into the pump 
chamber. 

The limit of suction at the level of the sea is about 32 feet. The 
practical limitation of suction in ordinary pumping operations is about 


67 


25 feet, and at this depth any good pump ought to make satisfactory de¬ 
livery. The difficulty in high lifts coupled with high plunger speed is 
that the pump chamber does not fill, and becomes noisy in its operation. 

For pumping hot water the delivery ought to be, if possible, into the 
suction chamber of the pump without lift. This is not always practicable, 
and for temperatures up to 120° Fahr. a suction lift of 10 to 15 teet may 
be employed, but beyond this there is too much uncertainty to take the 
chances unless there is another sonrce of supply to which recourse may 
be had in case of failure. 

The delivery pipes call for no special mention, as they are on the 
forcing side of the pump. These pipes should follow the dimensions 
given in the tapped or threaded opening in the force chamber. A gate 
valve, or a check valve should be included in the piping near the pump 
for shutting off the water pressure, in case it should be necessary to 
examine the pump valves. 

The steam pipe should be fitted with a union joint below the throttle 
valve so that the pump could be disconnected, if necessary, while the 
steam pressure is on. 

The exhaust pipe may lead to any convenient place for utilization in 
heating the building, into a feed water heater, or directly into the atmos¬ 
phere. 

Drainage pipes should be provided for carrying off any water of 
condensation which might collect in the steam cylinders. 

A charging pipe leading from an overhead tank into the suction cham¬ 
ber of the pump, or into the suction pipe, is a useful device for filling the 
pump and pipes with water, discharging any contained air at the same 
time. 

The injector has been for many years an active competitor of the 
direct acting steam pump. This ingenious piece of mechanism is, with¬ 
out doubt, the simplest apparatus yet devised for feeding steam boilers. 
The injector, like all new devices, the principles of which are not gener¬ 
ally understood, was a long time getting that full recognition which its 
merits warranted. 

The commercial arguments in favor of the injector are the small space 
occupied, good wearing qualities, the returning of the heat in the steam 
back to the boiler by the rise in temperature of the feed water, that they 
are comparatively noiseless in operation, their first cost is very low, and 
are not liable to serious derangement and, therefore, economical in the 
cost of maintainence. 

The accompanying illustration represents in sectional elevation a 
Seller’s fixed nozzle injector which may be taken as illustrating the 
salient features of injectors generally. 

It will be seen that the instrument is quite simple in its construction, 
notwithstanding its applicability to varied conditions of service : A is the 
body or case of the injector; B is the steam connection leading from 
the steam-space in the boiler; C is the water-supply connection, in which 
is situated the water-regulating valve R ; D is the water-delivery connec¬ 
tion, containing a check-valve, and leading to the boiler. The overflow- 

68 


valve N may be shifted to either side of the injector body, and turned 
radially, so that the injector may be placed in any position that will per¬ 
mit it to discharge the overflow vertically downward. 

B 



C 


The action of the injector depends upon the momentum of a jet of 
dry steam moving at a high velocity, transferred to a body of water cold 
enough to condense this steam and moving at a lower velocity, the mo¬ 
mentum thus acquired by the water being sufficient to overcome the 
friction of the feed pipes and valves, and enter the boiler at the same 
steam pressure as that of the incoming jet. 

The suction lift of an injector should not exceed 15 feet to get the 
best average working results, though 18 to 20 feet is permissable at the 
cost of lower efficiency. 

The water supply should be at a continuous temperature, the lower 
the temperature the easier it is to create and maintain a vacuum within 
the instrument, if the water supply be at a temperature of say 120°, more 
water will be required to condense the incoming jet of steam than if the 
temperature were 6o°, retarding the velocity of the steam jet, and at the 
same time reducing the power of forcing the water forward. The water 
supply for high pressures should not exceed ioo°; for low pressures, the 
temperature should not be higher than 130 to 140° and then only on 
very low lifts. 

On account of the small openings through the nozzles of an injector, 
it is important that the water supply be very clean, because small parti¬ 
cles of floating matter, sand, grit, etc., which would pass through a pump 
unnoticed, will in all probability stop its action, and will require to be 
taken apart to remove whatever may have lodged therein. 

The quantity of water carried per pound of steam varies somewhat 
with the make of injector, but on an average one pound of dry steam 
will deliver into the boiler about 16 pounds of water against a gauge pres¬ 
sure of 100 pounds. 

The rise in temperature of the feed water is due to the condensation 
of the jet of steam within it, which gives it motion. Hutton explains 
this action in supposing 1 pound of steam in motion to be mixed with 2 

69 













pounds of water at rest, the result produced would be 3 pounds put in 
motion at one-third the original velocity of steam. The velocity of water 
or steam issuing into the atmosphere from the same boiler, is equal to 
that acquired by a falling body in falling through the height of a column 
of the same water or steam giving the same effective pressure. And 
since the velocity acquired by a falling body is proportional to the square 
root of the height through which it fell, it follows that the velocity 
of the water and the steam would be proportional to the square roots of 
their relative volumes. 

The volume of steam with one atmosphere effective pressure, or 30 
pounds absolute pressure, is 827 times that of water, it would issue with 
the square root of 827=28.76, or say 29 times the velocity of the water 
from the same boiler. Hence the steam issuing w T ould just balance 29 
times its own weight of water trying to issue from the boiler. The num¬ 
ber of units of heat in 1 pound of steam at 30 pounds absolute is 1159 
Fah., and assuming the original temperature of the feed water at ioo°, 
the rise in temperature of the feed water would be : 

1159 units of steam—ioo° water_p , 

2 9 _I_ I —35-3 a • 

with steam at 1 atmosphere effective pressure, or 30 pounds per square 
inch absolute pressure. 

Injectors are classed * as single jet injectors—double jet—automatic 
or restarting—self-adjusting, open overflow—closed overflow. 

The automatic exhaust steam injector is a simple and efficient boiler 
feeder worked by the exhaust steam from a non-condensing engine, 
instead of live steam from the boiler. Such an injector works at but 
little pressure above that of the atmosphere, and, w 7 hile not in as general 
use as the live steam injectors has proven a very satisfactory device where 
the conditions are favorable to its use. 

Ihe Inspirator differs from an injector in being a double instrument 
one-half of which is a lifting and the other half a forcing apparatus ; 
the lifter drawing the water from a well or tank and delivering it to the 
forcer, which then delivers it to the boiler, and at any steam pressure 
without adjustment. 

To enter fully into the history, theory, developement and description 
of the varieties of injectors and ejectors now in the market, would require 
more time than is at our disposal this evening. 

I thank you for your attention at what may seem to have been a 
rambling talk about pumps, but if you shall have caught an idea either 
as to the construction, care and management of boiler feed apparatus, I 
shall feel that my efforts have not been w’holly lost. 


* Kneass. 



UNDERGROUND CONDUITS AND CONDUCTORS 

BY 

JOSEPH D. ISRAEL, 

Supt. o> Street Work. 


After having obtained the consent of the City Fathers to lay and 
maintain underground conduits and conductors, the question .that con¬ 
fronts the engineer is—what is the most feasible system for this construc¬ 
tion ? The points to be considered are capability of inspection in every 
part, ease of removal or replacement with the greatest possible rapidity, 
and furthermore, the least possible obstruction to the public highways— 
the latter being a more important consideration than many would at first 
believe. 

In a large city in which the municipality, as well as numerous 
private corporations are continually constructing sub-structures, the con¬ 
sideration of economy of space is an imperative duty of the engineer, 
particularly in a city like Philadelphia, where the narrow limits of the 
streets necessarily drive us all into cramped quarters. The question of 
durability, which naturally includes repairs, is of paramount importance, 
as one of the thorns on our rose bush of prosperity is the expense of 
street repairs and maintenance. 

No doubt, many of you are at a loss to understand why the cost of 
construction has not been mentioned ; and in explanation of this I will 
say that since the days of Adam, the first consideration in every under¬ 
taking has been, “how much will it cost?” The presumption is that 
the item of expense always enters into every operation, and that it is the 
duty of the engineer to exert his efforts to obtain the best and most prac¬ 
tical material, while it is the duty of the financier to hold in check any 
contemplated extravagant expenditures. The consultations between the 
two will lead to the proper solution, that is, obtaining the best material 
at the least possible cost, within such a limit that the returns of operation 
will not give the directors and stockholders of the operation any cause 
for complaint. 


71 



Our foster father, Edison, has said—“Practical experience is better 
than theory every time” ; and I will therefore attempt to describe to you 
the result of my' experience in this work, especially dwelling upon the 
Edison system, which concerns us all most directly. 

After a moment’s reflection, it is manifest to all of you that the ad¬ 
vantages of an underground system are so numerous, when held in com¬ 
parison with the overhead, or aerial, lines of distribution that any com¬ 
ment, almost, seems superfluous. 

In the matter of first cost, the advantage is decidedly in favor of the 
overhead lines, except as in the Edison system of distribution, where the 
conductors used for mains and feeders are necessarily larger than the or¬ 
dinary aerial telegraph or telephone wires. In such cases the cost of sus¬ 
pending the wires on suitable supports is almost as much as for the intro¬ 
duction of an underground system. 

The cost of introduction of an overhead line would be considerable 
less than the undergroud line, were it not for the fact that all overhead 
lines are subjected to the changes of temperature, lightning strokes, as well 
as accidental injury from wind, snow and sleet. To such an extent do 
these conditions operate against the system, that it is a fact in certain 
localities, wholesale renewal of wires is necessary every few years, owing 
to the destruction of the lines due to violent storms. Futhermore, the 
multiplicity of wires is such, that the overhead lines are undoubtedly a 
disfigurement to our highways, as well as a menace to life and limb, 
through the possibilitv of their crossing with other electrical wires of 
high tension, and by falling from their supports. An interruption in the 
service is a serious loss' to the Company operating the wires. 

All the large cities attempting to keep in the front line of progress 
are now compelling by law, electrical corporations to remove their over¬ 
head lines, and to place the same underground. At first there was con¬ 
siderable objection raised by the corporations on acconut of the additional 
expense to which they would be put, as well as the claim set up by them 
that the underground system could not be successfully operated. In 
places where the underground system has already been established, the 
returns are giving a profit on the investment ; and the practibility of the 
system has been demonstrated so successfully, that in spite of the opinion 
of able men who spoke against the system, every electrician will to-day 
state that if properly constructed, the underground system will give entire 
satisfaction for electrical work. 

We are then well satisfied that the experimental stage of underground 
conduit construction has been passed, and we are ready to accept the fact, 
that in large cities where the work to be done is confined within a small 
territory, the underground system can be constructed and operated as 
economically as the overhead lines, in view of the conditions which have 
to be met. 

There are essentially two systems of conduit for underground use. 

The one in which the cable is drawn into the pipe or opening, from 
which it can readily be withdrawn if necessary, this we call the “open” 
or “drawing-in” system ; the other in which the conductor is solidly 
built in an insulated pipe—that we call the “built in” system. 

72 


In the “drawing in” system, we have pipes or tubes lying side by 
side and upon each other, connected in such a manner that we have a 
number of openings, continuous from man-hole to man-hole, these 
manholes being located usually at the intersection of streets. 

In the “built in” system, the copper conductors are encased in an 
iron pipe, cut in convenient lengths and connected while being laid, 
giving us one continuous line between terminal points. 

The advantage of the “drawing in” system is the capability of mak¬ 
ing tests and repairs in any manhole, thus subdividing the conductors 
into short lengths, and locating faults which may arise without making 
any openings in the street paving. This is a decided advantage in con¬ 
venience, time and cost, and does not interfere with the traffic of the 
streets. We cannot make repairs to the conductors in the “built in” sys¬ 
tem except by opening the streets at each particular place, required by 
the work to be done. 

Considering the material most commonly used in the construction of 
the conduits, for practical purposes we have wood, iron and terra-cotta, 
or as is sometimes termed, vitrified clay. Up to the present time, the 
most extensive use has been made of wood. 

It is popularly supposed that wood will rot and decay within a short 
time when buried under ground. In the course of our work we have 
often uncovered sections of wooden water pipe, which were in use over 
forty-years. These pipes consisted of a hole bored in the centre of a 
circular log. Had it been necessary, they would s'dll have answered their 
original purpose, for although the outer surface had, in some instances 
started to decay, the bore of the log and the fi bres in close proximity 
were still in almost perfect condition. 

In our electrical wooden conduits, we are further advanced in the 
point that instead of untreated wood, we use creosoted timber. This 
creosoting gives a lasting quality to the timber that materially helps it to 
withstand the ravages of age and consequently prolongs its life and use¬ 
fulness. 

Qreosoted timber is obtained by treating the lumber (preferable yel¬ 
low pine) with dead oil of coal tar, which is the pitch obtained from 
bituminous coal which contains an oily acid and tarry matter. 

The creosote in itself has a detrimental effect on the lead coverings 
of the cable, which are drawn into the conduit. At times we have been 
compelled to remove sections of our cable on account of the lead having 
been destroyed through the formation of carbonate of lead ; giving the 
cable the appearance of having been partially eaten away, thus forming 
a white crust on the outer surface of the lead. 

It is claimed that the destructive effects of freshly applied creosote 
disappear after a few years ; but this claim is open to serious doubt, and 
a conscientious man could not afford to experiment with creosote in 
a business operation, and it is his duty to guard against it. 

To overcome the chemical action, cables have been covered with a 
cotton or hemp braiding over the lead, and latterly we have used a com¬ 
position of asphalt and jute which is, apparently, preventing the decom- 


73 


position of the lead and will no doubt withstand such action for many 
years. 

In European countries creosoted timber has been in successful oper¬ 
ation for over fifty years, and in this country it has proven its indestruct¬ 
ibility when buried in the earth for over twenty-five years. An impor¬ 
tant fact to be closely considered is the manner in which the timber has 
been treated with the coal tar , for to thoroughly preserve the timber all 
germs of decay must be removed and the timbei thoroughly satur¬ 
ated with the tar. A mere outside application would give us an apparent¬ 
ly good conduit with a diseased internal organism, which would shortly 
manifest itself in the utter deterioration of the conduit. 

Unfortunately the Edison Electric Light Company of Philadelphia 
was forced by political legislation to make use of a wooden conduit which 
is only an apology for an underground construction. This was simply 
plain boards roughly nailed together, the boards having first been painted 
(you cannot say treated) with a tar composition. Naturally the thing 
very rapidly turned into dry rot, and in the few cases where the company 
was positively compelled to make use of some of the ducts or openings, 
they have already been required to remove the entire structure and replace 
it with more modern improvements. 



Fig. i. 

Among the wooden conduits used extensively, and whose usefulness 
have been proved, is the tubing, Fig. i, which you see is the old fash¬ 
ioned pump log, made with a groove at one end, and a tongue at the other- 
These are easily fitted into each other. A dash of tar paint is used on 
the tongue before slipping it into the groove, thus giving a better pro- 

74 

















tected joint. These tubes are laid above each other in tiers and no nails are 
required in the construction. The absence of nails removes a factor 
of danger from mechanical injury in drawing in conductors. “Look out 
for nails,” would be a good watch-word to establish when engaged in 
conduit work. 

Somewhat similar in principle, but different in design, is the wooden 
conduit, Fig. 2. This is made in sections of any desired number of ducts. 



Fig. 2. 

The top and bottom pieces contain the upper and lower halves of the 
openings. Center pieces are then added, as you can readily see, to in¬ 
crease the conduit to any desired size. There is a groove on the outer 
edge of each section, and a tongue is used in joining the sections together. 
A later idea is to use a strip of felt on the outer edge in place of the 
tongue and groove. Of course, nails are used in joining these sections, 

75 











and care must be exercised in fitting the ends of the lengths. By miter¬ 
ing the ends, we can deviate from a straight course, an operation which 
must be frequently performed in practical work. It is customary to lay 
a plank on top of all these conduits to prevent any damage being done 
by parties engaged in other work in the streets. In order to attempt to 
make a water tight joint, pieces of felt are tacked around the outside 
seams and then painted with pitch. 

Among iron conduits, we have the cast iron pipes, which are fitted 
into the adjoining pipes by means of a screw thread cut at the ends. Iron 
is not an insulator to any extent at all, and is therefore not well adapted 
for electrical work where the conductor conies in direct contact with the 
iron. There is a certain amount of self induction set up, and consequently 
a loss of electrical energy. The joints between the sections of the pipes 
present sharp edges which are liable to cut the cable as it is drawn in, 
and the iron corrodes and forms scales on the inside of the pipe, which is 
detrimental to the insulation of the conductor. The sharp edge of the 
pipe terminating in the manhole is also liable to cut the cable. 

Other forms of iron conduit are those in which we have what might 
be called lined tubes. One system consists of a light cast iron rack hold¬ 
ing a series of tubes. The space between the tubes is filled in with an 
insulating compound composed chiefly of pitch. These tubes are similar 
to the interior conduit used for inside work. 

They are a specially treated preparation of a paper conduit covered 
with a light cast iron armor. These pipes take the shape of a telescope, 
one fitting into the other and a sleeve is run over the joints. The interior 
of the conduit being composed of insulating material throughout its en¬ 
tire length. It is claimed to be air tight and moisture proof, and there¬ 
fore admits of the use of bare copper conductors, thus saving the cost of 
cable insulation. 

The use ot bare conductors requires an extra precaution to be taken 
in the manholes, in order to carry the conductors across the space where 
they will be subjected to the conditions of the weather, as well as the 
danger of coming in contact with parallel and intersecting wires. To 
overcome this,. the section of the conduit entering the manhole is ex¬ 
panded in a forked form and also in a vertical line to allow more space 
for the conductors, and then a short pipe projection is provided to be 
carried across the manhole to the opposite section of pipe, thus making 
the insulated tube complete. 

Another form of iron conduit is a wrought iron, cement lined pipe. 
This conduit consists of a wrought iron shell, T X g of an inch thick, rivited, 
and lined with of an inch of cement concrete. The ends are ball and 
socket, so as to give an assurance of good joints and alignment. The de¬ 
sired number of these pipes are laid iu a matrix of cement. A mandril is 
drawn through these tubes to smooth the inner surface. There is a 
danger which suggests itself in cement lined tubes in the formation of 
scaly teeth from the cement, on account of the mandril not catching and 
thoroughly scraping all the loose material. These teeth make it difficult in 
some cases in drawing in the cables as they take hold of the outside in- 

76 


Fig. 3- 



sulation, cutting and preventing 
the cable from being drawn through. 
This occurred at a point in Philadel¬ 
phia with a feeder cable of one of 
the electric railway lines, and nec¬ 
essitated an opening of the street 
to make repairs. 

Another form of the drawing in 
system is the conduit as shown in 
Fig. 3. This system might be classi¬ 
fied as a combination of the iron and 
wood conduits. The conduit con¬ 
sists of split wooden ducts, which 
are separated from each other by 
spiral windings of rope. The wood 
and rope are specially prepared by 
being boiled in oil. A number of 
these ducts are held collectively to¬ 
gether by an outside spiral binding 
and placed in an iron pipe. 

The space between the wooden 
ducts and iron pipe is filled in with 
an insulating compound. A plug is 
driven in at the ends. At one end 
the ducts project 1 x / z inches beyond 
the end of the pipe, and at the other 
end recede for the same distance. 
The pipes are made in twenty foot 
lengths, and the sections are joined 
by the projecting ends of the ducts 
slipping into the plug which holds 
the receding ends of the ducts in the 
next pipe. 

The joints are protected by a 
cast iron box covering, which is also 
filled with an insulating compound. 
In the mannei of details as to dis¬ 
tribution, service connection, &c., 
the system is somewhat similar to 
the Edison system which will be 
described farther on. 

It is intended that this conduit 
should be used for bare conductors. 
The smoothness of the inner sur¬ 
face of the ducts permits of ease in 
drawing in the conductors. The 
protection afforded the joints by 
the iron coupling box prevents 
water or moisture from reaching 
the conductors. 

77 



























































This is a comparatively recent invention and up to the present time 
little opportunity has been given us to test its practicability. From des¬ 
criptions furnished it appears to be a meritorious system.. 

In the class of earthen-ware conduits we have the glazed terra cotta 
or vitrified clay conduit. It is cheaper than iron but not as cheap as 
wood for underground construction. A bed or incasing of concrete about 
6 inches thick is laid around each tier, and then the whole body of the 
conduit is incased in a similar concrete bed. 

This system is used in Washington City by the U. S. Government. 
The stoneware offers a very hard and smooth surface, but at the same time 
it also offers objections on account of its liability to fracture and the diffi¬ 
culty of making good joints. The ends of the sections butt up against 
each other, a slight offset being made at each length. A cover is then 
provided to overlap the joints, a mandril or scraper being drawn through 
to clear the ducts, and the conduit is then covered with concrete. 

This conduit will not adapt itself to the depressions or inclines occa¬ 
sioned by intersecting lines, and in such cases it is usually necessary to 
build extra manholes and cross the obstructions with iron pipes. 

There is no chemical action on the lead conductors, but condensation 
is set up due to the changes of temperature which keeps the inside of the 
conduit moist to a certain degree, a very undesirable condition for elec¬ 
trical purposes. 

After investigating the various makes of conduits and examining 
them in actual working condition, the conclusion must be reached that 
in spite of claims set forth by manufacturers, it is a physical impossibility 
to produce an absolutely water-tight conduit. The mechanical protec¬ 
tion offered to the cable is the point to be considered in conjunction with 
the other points as previously mentioned. 

After careful investigation it appears that wood answers the purpose as 
well, if not better than any oth^r material, on account of cheapness, 
flexibility of alignment and compactness. The pump log style is easily 
laid, requiring neither experience or adept workmanship nor accessories 
of any kind in its construction. No nails or troublesome joints. The 
same material answers for any number of ducts, placing in the ground the 
required amount as the work progresses. If the space beside the pipe is 
filled in with asphalt we have a very substantial structure. The creosote 
is the only objectionable feature, and it is overcome by chemical proof 
insulation. 

The manholes are best built of brick with an iron frame top. A re¬ 
cent invention gives us a top cover in the shape of a bowl filled with the 
same material as the street paving. This is very desirable when filled 
with asphalt on newly paved streets. It renders visible only the outer 
iron band of the cover, thus removing any unsightly iron from the street 
surface, and at the same time is practically noiseless. 

The rodding or piloting of these ducts, although a very simple matter, 
calls forth many ludicrous questions from curious people on the streets. 
The workmen have a set phrase in answer to the inquiry “How did you 
get the rope through ? ” It is “We had a piece of cheese at the other end 

78 


and we sent a rat through with a string tied to his tail.” Now for a fact 
ferrets have been used in London, but at present that is not the usual 
custom of procedure. We have a number of small lengths of rods with a 
screw and socket at the end. In one manhole we screw these together 
and push them through the duct until the first rod reaches the far man¬ 
hole. The rods are then disconnected and pulled through until we reach 
the last rod which has the rope attached to it. 

A useful invention for laying the pilot wire through conduits, is the 
Cope pilot. 

This machine can be operated by a man standing above ground and 
thus avoids the necessity of working in the manhole. 

The operating lines act directly on the head of the machine and its 
gripping parts, so that all the power applied to the operating lines is 
exerted equally in moving .the machine forward about 5 feet with each 
movement. This movement is effected by means of a pulley gearing 
and grip, and in case of meeting an obstruction, can be thrown out of 
gear and withdrawn. 

In the matter of cable conductors, it has been found, as previously 
stated, that for the protection of lead a jute, asphalt or braid covering is 
required in such places where the cable is liable to be subjected to chetn- 
cal action. The insulation for the copper conductor is in most cases 
either a form of rubber or gutta-percha or some fibrous insulation such 
as jute. 

The rubber is susceptible to the changes of temperature and although 
much in use, it has given considerable trouble in the past, particularly 
when it has been placed near underground steam pipes. The vulcanizing 
effects of rubber have proven to be detrimental to the copper itself, 
chemically decomposing it on account of the sulphur which rubber 
contains. 

The jute insulation containing a quantity of resin has stood the test 
of time, and has proven itself satisfactory. It is pliable and is impervious 
to water. The question of insulation is not so much one of quality as it 
is one of quantity. In other words, to solve the question of insulation, 
“ give the copper more rope.” 

In the “built-in ” system of underground construction, the conduit 
and conductor are necessarily combined. In this class we have the sys¬ 
tem as used by the Edisod companies, popularly known as the Edison 
tube. 

In the three wire form of distribution, this tube is composed of three 
copper rods. Each copper rod is spun over separately with a prepared 
rope and then placed in a triangular position and wound with a fourth 
rope. The coppers thus separated are placed in position in the center of 
a lap-welded steam pipe, from which the air has been exhausted by 
means of a vacuum pump. The pipe is then filled with an insulating com¬ 
pound composed chiefly of asphalt, Trinidad tar and linseed oil. This 
compound fills up all the open space in the pipe, and rubber plugs are 
used to close the ends. The pipe is then painted to preserve the iron 
from rust, the finished product gives us the Edison tube, consisting of 


79 







three copper conductors in¬ 
sulated from and protected 
by an iron armor. This tube 
is therefore both conduit and 
conductor ready to be laid in 
the ground. 

In the Edison system of 
distribution, the tubes are 

divided into the two classes of Feeders and Mains. 

Feeders run from the station to various centers of distribution. Their 
function is to keep up the supply of electricity, and their terminal point 
may be considered as a current pool from which the attached lines draw 
their supplies. The advantages of the three wire system for a saving in 
copper, are familiar to all electricians, and it is in the feeder tube that 
this is at once made self-evident. In the feeder tube, one conductor is 
smaller than the other two. That conductor is called the neutral wire. 
The larger conductors being the positive and negative wires. 

By referring to Fig. 5, you will see that the middle or neutral wire can 


\ + 



FEEDERS. 



Fig. 4 . 



be made of a smaller size than the two outside, or positive and negative 
wires, because the current flows from the upper dynamo along the posi¬ 
tive wire through the upper lamps and back along the middle wire to the 
negative terminal of that dynamo. The current from the lower dynamo 
flows along the middle wire through the lower lamps and back along the 
negative wire to the negative terminal of that dynamo. If the current 
required for the two groups of lamps are equal, no current will flow 
along the middle wire ; but it will flow from the positive terminal of one 
machine through the two sets of lamps and back to the negative terminal 
of the other machine ; and then the middle or neutral wire wdll carry no 
current. If the current on each division is not equal, then an amount of 
current will flow along the middle wire, which will represent the differ¬ 
ences in amounts between the two divisions or sides of the system. 

In Central Station practice, it has been found that this difference will 
never be more than one-third of the maximum current consumed. 
Therefore it is safe to have the area of the neutral conductor one-third 
of the size of the outside conductors. 


80 




















In addition to the three conductors, you will see three small wires in 
the feeder tube, which are called the pressure wires, These wires form 
an independent circuit from the center of distribution to the Station ; 
and enable us to read, by means of suitable apparatus, the electrical 
pressure, potential or voltage at the end of the feeders. We have one 
wire for each polarity, and through the means of regulating apparatus, 
we can control the pressure until the desired effect is reached. 

In the main tubes there is no necessity for pressure wires, as the 
mains radiate from the centers of distribution and loop the ends of the 
feeders together. All services to supply consumers with electricity are 
tapped from the mains. As we can neither control nor dictate to the 
consumer, no matter how carefully we balance the system, a number 
of customers on one square may turn on all the lamps on one side of 
the system only. In order to guard against such an event, we do not 
reduce the size of the neutral wire in the main, but keep all three con¬ 
ductors of the same size. 

The feeder has, as a rule, four radial mains; and there is in it less 
probabitity of such an unbalancing as the load on these four mains will 
tend to counterbalance each other, 

These tubes, Fig. 6, are cut in standard lengths of 20 feet 4 inches, 



Fig. 6. 


with two inches of copper conductors projecting at each end. These 
coppers are connected by means of coupling jointts consisting of flexible 
cables with sockets cast at each end. The main joints have holes bored 
through the sockets to allow for service connections. These joints are 
carefully soldered. A ball and socket clamp which allows some flexi¬ 
bility is attached to the tubes, and the joints are protected by an iron 
coupling box, made in two halves to be bolted together. This box is 
filled with insulating compound, and if the work has been carefully 
and properly done we have an excellent connection of and protection to 
our conductors. 

For elbows, bends aud such like deviations from a straight course, 
the joints are made shorter or longer as required, and the boxes are made 
at the various angles of 20 degrees, 55 degrees and 90 degrees, thus 
allowing us to lay the tubes at right angles or any intermediate point 
from the straight line. 

8l 
















These tubes when used for fee'ders are not as satisfactory as cables 
drawn through conduits. The trouble with the tubes lies in the number 
of joints and the difficulty of getting at them. To overcome this 
difficulty, man-holes are built at the intersection and bisection of all 
streets, so as to include all coupling boxes on the feeder lines. Further¬ 
more faults are more likely to develop in tubes, and are more difficult to- 
locate. Cable faults are easily located and quickly repaired. 

For mains these tubes excel the use of cables. In order to connect ser¬ 
vices it is necessary to cut the main for each connection. A cable once cut 
is liable to deteriorate, and a fault will probably develop. With the Edison 
tube, we simply go to one of the joints, remove the straight coupling box, 
solder the coppers of a three wire lead covered service cable into the holes 
of the main coupling joint. We replace the box with a similarly 
constructed Tee box, and refill it with an insulating compound, and we 
then have as good a joint, as well protected, as was originally on the 
main. 

For service conductors we use a lead covered cable with jute insula¬ 
tion. This cable being flexible allows us to cross obstructions in the 
street and readily conforms to all necessary bends, inclines or depressions. 

In order to connect the feeder and mains at the center of distribution* 

( 

we have a safety fuse box called the Junction box. 

A safety fuse is a strip of lead of appropriate length and thickness,, 
connected at the ends with copper contact pieces, provided with a slot 
allowing it to slide under the binding posts. The length and thickness 
of a strip are so constructed as to carry only a certain desired amount of 
current; and as soon as it is overheated by a greater amount of current 
passing through it, it will fuse and melt, thus preventing the conductor of 
which it is a part, from overheating and burning out. It is therefore all 
that its name implies, a safety fuse. It not only protects its own line 
from probable burn-outs, but it also prevents faults from spreading to 
other lines. It is the known weak point of the conductor, and arrange¬ 
ments are therefore made to have ready and convenient access to it. It 
is consequently placed in the junction box. 

The junction box serves then, first as a center of distribution ; second,, 
as a center of equalization of electrical pressure between #the different 
parts of the system. These boxes afford a convenient means of inspect¬ 
ing the fuses and admit of a subdivision of the mains into short sections* 
and thus aid in localizing faults. A Junction box is placed at all the 
intersections of the streets. 

These boxes* Fig. 7, are made of cast iron with double covers. The 
inner cover is made water-tight by the use of a rubber gasket. The cover 
is screwed down with heavy nuts, and the seam around the edge is filled 
with wax and tallow. It is seldom that any water finds its way into these 
boxes after they have been properly sealed. 

The stubs at the bottom of the box contain short pieces of tubes for 
use in connecting with the feeders and mains leading into the box. In 
the inside of the box, cables lead from the stubs to terminal pieces placed 
on insulated blocks at the top. These cable terminals are opposite rings 
to which are attached all conductors of like polarity. 

82 


* 


The centre of the box consists of three rings of different polarity, 
insulated from each other by rubber plugs. This arrangement enables 
us to tell the polarity of each conductor by the position it occupies in the 
box. In addition to the rings, there is a small rubber plate holding bind¬ 
ing posts for connecting the pressure wires of the feeder tubes. 

Experience and care in the laying and connecting of these materials 
aids much in lessening the probability of future trouble and it is therefore 
well to exercise especial care in the installation of the system, as it will 
undoubtedly lead to a saving in the cost of maintenance. 



Fig. 7. 


A level and uniform foundation should be secured. A sagging of a 
tube will cause the connecting joints to come together and produce a 
burn-out. This and a straining on a tube causes frequent trouble. A strain 
in a tube brings the copper conductors into contact with each other or 
the iron pipe. 

Clean copper terminals are essential for good contacts and prevent 
undue heating. Above all, the plugs at the ends of the tubes must be 
scrupulously clean, as any slight accumulation of foreign matter may lead 

83 


































to a short circuit between the conductors. All joints should be well 
wiped and cleaned to insure that no loose solder can be heated by the 
insulating compound or the current, and allowed to run between the 
connections. 

Proper filling of the boxes with the insulating compound is an im¬ 
portant matter. Much trouble can be caused by water finding its way 
into the boxes, which after it reaches the joints, causes complete burn-outs. 

Another source of trouble is caused by the irregularity in potential. 

As a result of experimental scientific investigation, the following law 
has been deduced. “The tendency of the current to break through the 
insulation is directly proportional to the square of the potential.” This 
means that if the voltage is 115, the tendency to break through the in¬ 
sulation is 115 squared, or 13,225 units. Now suppose the potential rises 
two volts, and is 117, a small rise apparently causing no damage, yet the 
tendency to break through the insulation is (117) squared or 13,689 units, 
a difference of 464 units for a two volt rise. If the voltage rises to 120, 
the difference will be 1175 units, or an increase of over 8 per cent, in the 
tendency to break through the insulation. As any log book will show, a 
majority of burn-outs do occur, not as might be supposed, during the 
time of heavy loads, but at the time of light loads and high voltage. 
That is, the most complete burn-outs on the street conductors develop 
between midnight and early morning, during the time when the load 
rapidly falls off and the potential naturally rises, unless the strictest vig¬ 
ilance and most prompt action is exercised by the dynamo room man 
controlling the regulating apparatus. 

Given (Fig, 8) a wooden conduit, a cable feeder, an Edison main and 
junction box, you have (considering the items of compactness, cost and 
durability), the material for as good an underground construction as has 
been devised by man up to the present time. 


84 


lead co re reef 
Cables S 


Os/oha/e 


2' Board — 





































































































































































































































































































































ABSTRACT FROM A 


LECTURE ON ELECTRIC HEATING 

BY 

A. E. KENNELIvY, F. R. A. S. 


By conducting electricity, a wire becomes heated. The energy 
which the heat represents, is taken from the circuit, and is, therefore, de¬ 
rived from the source of- electro-motive force which is supplying the 
current in the circuit. In every case of electric heating, this heat has to 
be supplied from the circuit and by the source of energy, which in its 
turn supplies the current. An electric current, in fact, is only the dis¬ 
tributing agent, and the energy is usually developed in a central station 
from the coal burnt under the boilers. 

We measure power, or the rate of doing work, in watts. An activity 
of one watt taking the form of mechanical work, is equivalent to the 
performance of 0.738, or nearly of a pound raised one foot in height per 
second, but if the work be expressed as heat, then one watt may be rep¬ 
resented by the heating of one pound of water about 1/18 degree Fahren¬ 
heit in one minute. It is important to observe that work cannot be 
expressed in watts, but only the rate of doing work, a horse-power being 
equal to 746 watts, or an activity of 550 ft. lbs. per second. 

The heat produced in a wire only depends upon the number of watts 
expended electrically by the current in overcoming the resistance of the 
wire. The greater the resistance of the wire, the greater will be the 
number of watts expended by a given current strength in a wire, and 
tbe greater will be the amount of heat produced each second. If we divide 
the number of watts by 18, we obtain the number of pounds of water 
which could be raised one degree Fahrenheit in one minute by this 
activity, if entirely applied to that purpose. 

If we measure the drop of pressure in volts which occurs in any 
length of conductor when it carries a current, and multiply by the num¬ 
ber of amperes of current, we obtain the number of watts and we know 




the amount of heat which is being developed in the wire. Thus, if a 
feeder connecting a central station with a net-work of street mains shows 
a drop of three volts, and carries a current of 600 amperes, there will be 
an activity of 1800 watts in the conductor entirely expended in heating 
the copper, and capable of raising one pound of water one hundred de¬ 
grees Fahrenheit in every minute of time, if the heat could all be 
collected and utilized for this purpose. Although it is therefore very 
easy to thus ascertain how much heat is being developed in a conductor 
carrying an electric current, when the drop of pressure and current 
through that conductor are known, it is much more difficult to say what 
the effect of that heating will be, or, in other words, how hot a conductor 
will become, because it is very difficult to determine how rapidly the heat 
which is produced, will escape from the substance of the conductor into 
the air or surrounding bodies. If the conductor, as for example a wide 
ribbon of copper, offers a large surface to the surrounding air, then it is 
evident that the same amount of heat developed in the conductor ; i. e. y 
the same number of watts expended in it, will not heat the ribbon nearly 
so much as a round wire of the same resistance and weight, since the 
round wire would not offer the same surface from which the heat could 
be set free. Not only the shape of the conductor, but also the nature of 
its surroundings have an important influence upon the heating of the 
conductor and the temperature which it will reach for a given number of 
watts expended in it. 

In an electric stove or heater, where a high temperature is desired, 
a heated conductor is placed within a thermally non-conducting material 
and the flow of heat from the apparatus is checked as much as possible. 

A copper wire carefully insulated, when immersed in water, by a 
thin coating of water proof material is usually kept comparatively cool, 
owing to the rapid conduction of heat through the insulating cover into 
the water. The same wire carrying the same current, but suspended in 
air, instead of being immersed in water, will usually attain a considerably 
higher temperature, as still air does not carry away heat from the sur¬ 
face of the wire so effectively as still water. For the same reason a wire 
buried under ground will, in almost all cases, be found to be cooler where 
buried in the ground, than where supported in the air of a vault. Conse¬ 
quently, if it be desired to know whether a feeder or underground con¬ 
ductor buried in the ground is overheated by a powerful steady current, 
it is only necessary to make an examination of the feeder where it is sup¬ 
ported in the air in the vault before entering the underground trench 
outside the building. If the temperature of the conductor is not exces¬ 
sive in the vault it may in almost all cases be considered as not excessive 
in the ground outside, unless, indeed, it be buried near the surface and 
exposed to the sun’s heat, or be buried close to a number of other con¬ 
ductors which are heated by powerful currents, so as to be unduly 
heated by their vicinity. 

A wire which is not uncomfortably hot when grasped in the hand 
may be regarded as having a safe temperature ; i. e., a temperature in¬ 
capable of either injuring the insulation of the wire or dangerously heat- 

86 



ing surrounding objects. A wire on the surface of a dynamo field magnet 
is similarly not dangerously hot when the hand can be borne upon its sur¬ 
face. The limitations to the heating of dynamo electric machines are, 
however, usnally fixed by the number of degrees to which they will heat 
under continuous full load above the surrounding air. Thus, well design¬ 
ed modern dynamo machines are usually guaranteed not to increase in 
temperature above the surrounding air more than 40° G. or 72 0 F. 

The Fire Insurance authorities adopted for the limiting current 
strength which a wire shall carry in buildings, a rule that is much below this 
limit, and corresponds to a temperature elevation at full load of ab&ut 
io° G. or 18°^. which represents a temperature elevation of 4o°(7, under 
accidental continuous overload of 100 per cent; i. e., twice the permitted 
current, 

The property of the heating of wires by electric currents, although 
usually an inconvenient necessity, is utilized in safety fuses which consist of 
conductors, usually of lead or lead alloy, and which have a high resistance, 
so as to develop a comparatively large number of watts under a given 
current strength, and a low melting point, so that a comparatively low 
temperature shall melt them. By this means a safe current can be carried 
indefinitely through such a fuse without overheating it, but when a cur¬ 
rent becomes too strong for the circuit or the conductors in the circuit, 
the fuse melts and interrupts the current. 

A wire of 500,000 circular mils, carrying 200 amperes will become con¬ 
siderably hotter than a wire of half the size, i. e., 250,000 circular mils car¬ 
rying half the current or 100 amperes, for the reason that it has much less 
surface for its weight than the small one. Similarly a safety fuse con¬ 
sisting of six lead wires rolled together into a strand will not carry six 
times the limiting current of each lead wire separately, owing to the re¬ 
duced surface per wire through which the heat can escape into the sur¬ 
rounding air. 

In a wire of uniform cross section, composed of copper, iron 
or german silver, the iron will heat more than the copper, and the 
german silver more than the iron, owing to the difference in their elec¬ 
trical resistance and the greater number of watts produced by a current in 
the higher resistance wires. 

The heating effects of electric currents are commercially utilized in 
various forms of electric heaters for the smelting of refractory ores, in 
electric welding machines and in electric stoves or house and car 
heaters. By the electric furnace a higher temperature can be obtained 
than in any other way, and chemical products, such as carborundum, 
carbides of calcium and aluminum can be obtained, which it would be 
very difficult or perhaps impracticable to obtain by more purely chemical 
methods. An electric welding machine produces an enormous current 
strength, sometimes 4°> 000 or 5 0 > 000 umperes through the ends of the 
two metal rods which have to be welded together, and so enables their 
temperature to be very rapidly raised to the welding point. Railroad 
rails are sometimes welded together by this process, the power employed 
being about 200'kilowatts. 

An electric heater or cooking stove finds considerable difficulty in 

87 


displacing existing forms of apparatus, because it is cheaper to burn coal 
in a stove than to burn coal under a boiler in order to drive an engine and 
dynamo for the development of electrical energy which shall be recon¬ 
verted into heat in an electric heater. Since electric energy in small 
quantities usually costs about 15 cents per kilowatt hour to the consumer, 
the cost of raising one gallon of w r ater from an ordinary temperature to 
the boiling point, allowing for the usual losses, is about 8 cents, by elec¬ 
tric heater. Where, however, only a small amount of cooking or heating 
has to be done, the cleanliness and convenience of the electric method 
are greatly in its favor. Similarly soldering irons, flat irons, etc., can be 
heated electrically less cheaply but much more conveniently than by 
flames. 

Explosives, such as submarine and subterranean mines, are usually 
exploded by the heating effect of an electric current in a fine wire or fuse 
situated at a distance from an electric source. 


88 






ELECTRIC METERS 

BY 

H. P. EDSON, 

Chief of Meter Department. 


In buying and selling it is necessary to have some basis for deter¬ 
mining the prices which are to be paid. Most all goods are sold accord¬ 
ing to size, quantity, weight, etc. Guess work is not safe, and where 
values cannot be measured we demand averages based upon long exper¬ 
ience. When it is possible to measure goods delivered the ingenuity of 
man is untiring until some means is found adapted to the use of all the 
trades of the world. It is only so far as we can draw from nature’s limit¬ 
less supply of necessaries and blessings—without money and without 
price, that we fail to find in these days a meter cheek upon our consump¬ 
tion. 

As long as people live in civilized communities, water and artificial 
light, will represent somebody’s labor, and as they come to be more and 
more generally used, they must be more and more accurately measured. 

Perhaps it has never occurred to many of us that about the only sys¬ 
tem of measurement that has ever quite satisfied mankind is the method 
or device by which we reckon the passage of time, which doesn’t cost us 
anything. 

We look with suspicion on all forms of measurement. We know by the 
ticking of the water meter that it is away off of any standard. And we 
are positive that the gas meter as well as the man that reads it is a liar 
and a fraud, and everything else that is bad. 

Now the electric current meter is a baby yet, but it is very likely to be 
considered by the majority of mankind as a direct descendent of the gas 
meter “a chip of the old block”—as it were. 

There are a great many kinds of electrical meters and it would pro¬ 
bably take me more than an hour to mention their names let alone their 
descriptions, I will this evening spend most of the time in describing to 
you the Edison Chemical Meter for two reasons. 

89 





First. Because the Edison Chemical Meter is the one and only one 
used by this Company for, measuring the current supplied to its consum¬ 
ers. 

Second reason is because I do not know enough about other styles 
of meters to spend more than a few minutes in describing them. 

Mr. Edison knew, when he was working to perfect his system of in¬ 
candescent electric lighting, that it was very necessary to have a cheap 
and accurate meter for the measuring of electricity. And a long series 
of experiments made by him culminated in the production of the pres¬ 
ent Edison meter, which is used very extensively in this country and 
abroad. 

The meters which Edison made during his experiments will probably 
be interesting to you, but before showing them to you I wish to explain 
the fundamental principle of the Edison meter. We have here ajar con¬ 
taining two zinc plates immersed in a solution of zinc sulphate. The 
action of electricity in passing from one plate to the other through the 
solution is to cause the first or positive plate to be eaten away and the 
same quantity of metal to be deposited on the second or negative plate. 
The metal does not go across the space between the plates. The action 
is this:— A molecule of zinc sulphate solution is decomposed at the 
negative plate, and the zinc in this molecule adheres to it, while the 
other elements of this molecule seize upon the zinc in the molecule behind 
it, and form a new molecule. This action keeps up through the distance 
between the plates until the freed elements of the last molecule seize upon 
an atom of zinc from the positive or loosing plate. This action is very 
slow and entirely invisible, but extremely sure. Occasional cases occur 
where the plates are over loaded and cause granular deposit which is 
likely to fall off from handling, (experiment), it is not necessary, by the 
way to use zinc plates, copper, silver, gold and many other metals are af¬ 
fected the same way. The amount of metal deposited is exactly proportion¬ 
al to the quantity of electricity, therefore in the case of the Edison meter 
the most essential part of the prepartion of the plates is the weighing. 

Faraday was guided by careful investigation to the conclusion, that 
when a current of electricity flows through a solution of diluted sulphuric 
acid, the amount or weight of the electrolyte decomposed is exactly pro¬ 
portional to the quantity of electricity that has traversed it. Hence if 
we catch for instance the bubbles of hydrogen which come off of the 
negative plates for any time, and weigh them the result will be exactly pro¬ 
portional to the number of coulombs of electricity that passed through 
the liquid. The weight measured in grammes of any constituent of elec¬ 
trolyte which is liberated by the passage of one coulomb of electricity, is 
called the “Electro Chemical Equivalent”. Practically it is found that 
the best metals to use in measuring quantities of current are either silver, 
zinc or copper. 

The Edison meter which we use in this station is shown here. The 
meter case is made of well seasoned hard wood, specially prepared to ex¬ 
pel air and to prevent warping and to maintain a high degree of insula¬ 
tion. The door is of heavy sheet iron which is locked by a button 
through which is passed a lead seal. 

90 




The wires enter and leave the meter through holes in the sides or bot¬ 
tom. The interior of the meter is so wired (by means of shunts) that 
011 b’ ?75 P art of the current passes through the bottle or measuring ap¬ 
paratus. So you see we do not measure all of the current but a very 
small fractional part of it. Some people therefore claim that if we 
make a slight error in the measurement of the fractional part we multiply 
the error by 975. So we do, but if the error is one per cent, in the frac¬ 
tional part the result or amount of bill will only be one per cent, wrong. 

There are two bottles to each shunt—each bottle receiving the same 
quantity of current—only one is essential however; the other one is 
merely a check. One defect of the Kdison meter is the failure of the 
terminal of the plate and the spring clip making a perfect electrical con¬ 
tact every time. This failure you can readily see would prevent the pas¬ 
sage of the current through the bottle and consequently we would obtain 
no deposit on that set of plates. 

This rarely happens however to both bottles at the same time so you 
see we can fall back on the other bottle. This defect of the Kdison meter 
is always against the Company and never against the consumer. 

Changes of temperature have no appreciable effect on the correct 
registration. Of course, as temperature rises, the resistance of the solu¬ 
tion decreases , and would affect the reading were it not for what is called 
the compensating spool, which is a coil of wire inserted in the bottle 
circuit; the resistance of which increases as the temperature rises, and 
therefore balances the effect produced on the solution. 

The solution which we use, freezesat a few degrees below the freezing 
point of water. If the solution freezes in a bottle, no deposit will take 
place. To prevent this there is made an instrument called a thermostat. 
It is placed in all meters that are exposed to temperatures sufficiently 
low T to endanger freezing of the' solution in the bottles. It is furnished 
as an extra attachment and space is left for its insertion in any size meter. 
It consists of a slender compound strip of brass and steel; one end of 
the strip is firmly fixed, while the other end, armed with a contact point, 
is free to move. A lamp is inserted in the socket—a high voltage lamp is 
preferable as it will not burn out .so quickly. When the temperature 
becomes dangerously low, the brass contracting more than the steel, 
causes the strip to curve and brings the two contact points together, thus 
closing the circuit and lighting the lamp. The lamp burns until the 
temperature in the meter rises—the strip then strightens out, the contact 
is broken and the lamp extinguished. This lighting and extinguishing 
of the thermostat lamp, goes on during all cold weather at regular inter¬ 
vals, sufficiently frequent to keep the temperature of the inside of the 
meter above the freezing point of the zinc sulphate solution. 

Now as the meter has been explained and its fundamental principles 
pointed out to you, let us see how a set of bottles or rather plates go 
through the various stages. When w r e receive the plates from the manu¬ 
facturers, they are dirty and greasy; they are ground on a sand paper 
wheel to clean and brighten them. The copper rods or terminals are 
then painted with asphaltum varnish for about an inch, to insulate the 


91 


copper from the solution. If the terminals were not painted, we would 
have the copper and zinc in the solution, which you know would form an 
excellent battery, and the resulting current would interfere with accurate 
readings. Next the plates are amalgamated—that is, dipped in mercury 
which causes the plates to obtain a polished silvery appearance. The plates 
we use are not perfectly pure zinc, they may contain in some one spot a 
little iron or other foreign substance which would cause a current between 
the impurity and the zinc. To overcome this we amalgamate the plates, 
which causes them to behave as if they were made of pure zinc. They 
are now placed upon a rack to dry for a day or so, when perfectly dry 
they are ready for weighing. The scales used for this work are very deli¬ 
cate affairs and are capable of weighing down to i/io of one milligram, 
which is about the weight of an eye-lash. We find however, that five 
milligrams is sufficiently close for our work, as it means only five cents 
in the bill. 

Each consumer has a sheet which is so ruled, that it will contain all 
the weights of the plates that go into his meter for a period of two years. 
On this sheet is recorded the weights of the set of plates (say four) which 
we are following. These plates are weighed a second time by another 
man, and records put down on another sheet, which are compared at the 
end of each day, and mistakes, if any, rectified. This system of duplicate 
weighing enables us to insist on the correctness of the bills rendered, as 
the weighing is the most likely place for an error to occur. 

The plates are now ready to “put up,” that is, connected together 
with other plates by means of hard rubber bolts, nuts, etc. One weighed 
plate with its mate is placed in a bottle—so we have four bottles, each 
containing two plates, only one of which, however, has been weighed. 

The bottles are now filled up with the Zinc Sulphate Solution, the 
specific gravity of which is 1.054. This number tells us how much heavier 
it is than pure water. To determine the specific gravity we use an instru¬ 
ment called a hydrometer. (Experiment.) 

The bottles are now corked up to prevent the solution from evaporat¬ 
ing and from being spilled. Cards bearing the name and address of the 
consumer are then attached to each bottle. They are now placed in the 
meter and left there for four weeks. In placing the bottles in the meter 
it is necessary that the meter man make every effort to make a good 
electrical contact between the terminals of the plates and the spring clips. 
It is also necessary that he must seal carefully each meter, as some enter¬ 
prising individual might be tempted to remove the bottles from the meter 
and thus save himself about half the amount of his bill. The bottles are 
placed in the meter in such a manner that two weigh plates gain and two 
lose. After having been in the meter the full term they are replaced with 
new ones, the old ones being returned to the meter room where they are 
“shocked out,” that is, plates removed from the bottles, taken apart and 
put on the rack to dry. They are then weighed in duplicate as before, 
and the weights entered on the sheets opposite the weights of the same 
plates when they left the meter room four weeks previous. They are then 
returned to be ground, to go through the same stages for some other meter 


92 





Outgoing. 

Incoming. 

Diff. 

A. 

35 ,o°o 

34 , 5 oo 

500) 

B. 

35,ooo 

35 , 5 oo 

500/ 

C. 

35,ooo 

34 , 5 oo 

500 \ 

D. 

35.000 

35 , 5 oo 

500 j 


A. 

B. 

C. 

D. 


35,ooo 

35,ooo 

35,ooo 

35,ooo 


the following month. Meter plates in ordinary practice last from eight 
to ten months when they are consigned to the scrap pile. 

Now as to the manner of computing the bill from this set of plates— 
we will suppose they were the smallest size plates and the weights were : 

Average diff. Lamp hrs. Amount. 

500 

500 

1000 1782 $13-37 

The average difference on each side is 500 milligrams, or a total 1000. 
In practice the gaining plates always gain a trifle more than the loosing 
looses. This is due to what is called oxidation, which is the deposition 
of some of the zinc in the solution upon the plates, causing them to gain 
in weight. This oxidation takes place upon the plates whether they are 
in a meter or whether they are not, so long as the}' are immersed in the 
solution. The factor of oxidation does not affect our calculations, as we 
have tw r o loosing and two gaining plates. Considering oxidation, the 
returns would be as follows : 

Outgoing. Incoming. Diff. Average diff. Damp hrs. Amount. 

34.520 480I 

35.520 520/ 

34.520 4801 5oo_ 

35 , 5 2 ° 520 J 1000 . 1782 $ 13-37 

You see that the loosing plates gain the same weight due to oxidation 
that the gaining plates do, and to eliminate this factor of oxidation, we 
place the bottles in the meters in such a manner that two weighed plates 
will gain and two will loose. 

As to the accuracy of the Edison Meter, I can say that I have tested 
some two hundred meters, and none of them were more than two per cent, 
wrong, and I noticed that in nine cases out of ten, the readings were 
smaller than they should have been—showing that the Edison Meter 
generally reads low. All carelessness, whether in the Meter Department 
or on account of dirty clips, or of bottles being frozen, causes the bills to 
be smaller than they should be, and the Company suffers—not the con¬ 
sumer. Probably some consumers will not believe this, but it is a fact 
nevertheless. 

The Edison meter stands on its own merits ; It is more largely used 
to-day than any other style ; its accuracy is unquestioned by any person 
who knows anything about meters. It is somewhat large but quite a 
cheap meter to operate. It has a great advantage over other meters in 
the matter of first cost, and it will stand rough usage very well—A damp 
cellar or an occasional shower bath, or a ton of coal being dumped on it, 
will not affect its accuracy. 

There is not much about it to get out of order add repairs amount to 
nothing; while the double bottle system and the fact that we start fresh 
every month insure perfect readings and accurate bills. 

Nevertheless we have some complaints from our consumers about 
the size of their bills. Some write letters asking us to guess again. 
Others have an idea that the bills are derived by multiplying the number 


93 




of lamps by the number of dark days in any one month. And when we 
start to explain the Edison meter—they claim that the meter is only a 
bluff, and if they don’t kick their bill will keep on increasing until they 
do, so they think it advisable to make a complaint about every six 
months. 

Other devices for the measurement of electricity have been tried by 
a great many experts, but no instrument has been found to combine in so 
high a degree the indispensable elements of cheapness and accuracy. 
All other forms of meters yet produced may be said to be either commer¬ 
cially impracticable or capable of only limited application. They are 
almost, without exception, too delicate or too costly for practical use, 
while being at the Same time liable to a considerable error from friction¬ 
al, magnetic and other variations. The principle of an ordinary electric 
motor enters into some of the most successful electricity meters. The 
quantity of current passing through such a meter determines the speed 
of its parts, which is registered on the dial either in Ampere hours or 
Watt hours 

One form of mechanical electricity meter, which we have here is a 
meter which measures the magnetizing power of the current, but as this 
is proportional to the current it also may be said to measure the current. 
The current passing through a coil causes it to become magnetized. This 
magnet attracts and holds a pendulum on the end of which is a piece 
of iron. The pull or force necessary to detatch the pendulum from the 
coil is measured and is recorded on the dial in Watt hours. This meas¬ 
uring takes place about every two minutes, and is found to be fairly ac¬ 
curate but quite complicated. 

Another very interesting and ingenious meter has the following prin¬ 
ciple involved :—A circular disk is caused to rotate very slowly by means 
of a small electric motor—at right angles to this disk is a rod on the end 
of which is a wheel connected to the dial and in contact with the disk. 
When there is no current passing through the meter the disk is stationary 
—but as soon as the current is passed through the disk starts to rotate— 
the speed is same for all loads. The rod to which the dial wheel is attached 
is moved up or towards the rim of the disk as the current increases, by 
means of coils through which the main current passes. Thus it will be 
readily seen that the speed of the dial wheel, will depend entirely upon 
the distance it is from the center of the disk. 


94 


DYNAMOS AND MOTORS, 

BY 

C. BILLBERG, 

Electrical Engineer. 


As time is very short I will leave out entirely all history and confine 
myself to fundamemtal facts and principles underlying the construction 
of'the modern Motor and Dynamo. 

The first thing we must try to make clear for ourselves is the phenom¬ 
enon of magnetism. You are all familiar with the picture we get if we 
take and dip a magnet into iron filings. If we examine such a picture close¬ 
ly, we will see that, though every time we dip the magnet in, we get a some¬ 
what different looking bunch, there nevertheless are certain features com¬ 
mon. The filings seems to form more or less threadlike lines. In fact, 
if we draw a line through the centre of each one of those small iron parti¬ 
cles from one to the other, we will find, that that line commences at one 
pole of our magnet and proceeds through an easy curve to the other and we 
may consider that, at the point where our curve strikes the magnet it 
enters it and continues through the magnet to the place where we started; 
thus forming a closed curve comprised partly within the magnet and partly 
in the space outside of it. This gave rise to the idea that the magnet was 
surrounded by such lines or curves at all times (entirely independent of 
the filings) and that though invisible they are there. In fact we find that 
a small magnet needle sets itself in the direction of the lines passing 
through that point and we can, by allowing such a small needle to move, 
trace curves representing those lines. As those lines are a most conven¬ 
ient way of forming a mental picture of the action of a magnet it has 
been universally accepted. Those lines or curves are known under the 
name of Lines of Force. This expression is now extensively used and 
we have even instruments by which we can measure the quantity of such 

95 



lines per square inch. The space wherein such lines are found is called 
a “Magnetic Field’’. It might be well to state here that we do not have 
any material that will do for those imaginary lines, what our common 
rubber or porcelain insulators will do for Electrical currents, or in other 
words, we can not insulate for magnetism. 

I have here a coil of insulated copper wire and 
if, I now put this straight piece of soft iron in it and 
then send a current through the windings of the coil, 
you will see that it behaves, relatively to the iron fil¬ 
ings, in the same way as the magnet ; in fact, it is a 
magnet and similar curves through the center of the 
fillings can be traced just as we traced them in the 
case of the magnet and those curves have the same 
properties as those of the magnet. If I now, when 
the filings still cling to the iron, cut of the current, we will see, that the 
iron filings will drop, but be attracted again the moment I close the 
circuit and allow the current to flow. This shows that we must continu¬ 
ally supply the coil with current or energy in order to be able to make 
use of this force. Now if you notice the bunch or number of filings 
clinging to the end of the rod and compare them with the bunch which 
will hang on to the rod I now substitute and dip in the filings, you will 
see, that by substituting this horse-shoe form of rod, the bunch or num¬ 
ber of filings has considerably increased, though, as I said before, the 
current or other conditions are the same in both cases. If we could trace 
the curves from those filings we should see that they, or the number of 
lines of force, would be largely increased. If we substituted a rod of 
cast iron instead of this one of wrought, we would see that the number 
would decrease and this gives us means to determine the quality of the 
iron ; the more such lines of force we can drive through a piece of iron 
with expenditure of the same amount of energy, the better is that iron 
fitted for magnetic purpose. If we once more take our coil, sending the 
same current through, but leaving the iron out and try to attract the fil¬ 
ings we will see a very slight action but still some. This proves that the 
force is emanating from the coil and not from the iron but that the iron 
increases this force. There are only a few known bodies such as iron, 
nickel and cobalt, that have this property. In fact iron has for the mag¬ 
netic lines of force this property in a very high degree. The difference 
between iron and air, or copper, can sometimes reach such numbers as 
20000, which means that through one square inch of iron we can send 
20000 times as many lines of force, as we can send through one square 
inch of air or copper with expenditure of the same amount of electrical 
energy. As we can not get chemically pure iron and as it is a fact that a 
fraction of a per cent, of impurities, sometimes changes this value very 
much, for instance 12 per cent, of manganese brings the carrying capacity 
of the iron almost down to the level of air or copper, the importance of 
knowledge of the iron we use for magnetic purposes is very great. It 
also follows from this that the make up of the magnetic circuit is of 
utmost importance in all cases. 



96 












I have here a coil or wire suspended, in a 
vertical position on two points in mercury cups. 

As one point is connected with the beginning 
end and the other with the ending end of the 
coil, I can pass an electric current through it by 
those means. If I now send a current through 
this coil of wire and if I then bring this coil of 
wire (the same I used before (see Fig. i) through 
which I also have a current flowing) near to it, 
we see that the coil moves a little bit, but, if I 
now put in this piece of straight iron in the coil, 
without changing the amount of current flowing, 
we will see that the deflection of the vertical coil is somewhat larger and 
increases still more if I exchange the straight rod for this horseshoe form¬ 
ed one. Fig. 3 is an end view of same coil as in 
Fig. 2. Fetter (a) represents our electromagnet in 
position and (6) our movable coil before current is 
turned on. Line (c) represents the position of coil 
( 5 ) when current is on both coils but no iron in 
electro-magnet (a). Line (a!) represents position of 
coil (b) with straight bar inside coil (a). 

Fig. 4 represents a cross-section (through 
line (g) ) of Fig. 2, including electro-magnet (a) 
with horse-shoe formed iron in place. Line (e) Fig. 

3 represents deflection of coil (b), when current 
is flowing in both coils and horse-shoe-formed iron piece in place. 

In all those cases we see that our lines of force 
due to the coil (a) cause more and more move¬ 
ment of coil (6), aswe increase them by making 
our magnetic circuit better and better and thus 
get more lines of force, without expending more 
electrical energy. We also see that our lines of 
force are cutting or crossing the wire of our coil 
(b) more or less at right angles. If we place our 
coils as is represented in Fig. 5, and turn on the 
-currents, we will see that we get no motion and 

also, that the lines of force in this case are par¬ 
allel to the plane of the coil (6) and not cutting 
it, as was the case in Figs. 3 and 4. We might also 
establish another fact and that is, that, if I de¬ 
crease the current flowing through our coil (&,) 
we will see that the deflection also decreases. 

Those are the actions and reactions, which 
take place in the motor. That is, if a current flows 
through a wire in a magnetic field, the tendency 
is to move the wire carrying the current one way 
or the other, depending on direction of current or of field, if the direction 
of the wire and the lines of force are not parallel. In a similar manner, 
if we have same field and same wire, but instead of furnishing it with 





J’ej.'fr 





97 


































































current we supply it with motion, the tendency will be to set up a current 
in the wire. This action takes place in the dynamo, and as I can not 
show it to you by experiment very readily, you will have to accept it on 
faith. This reversibility of a phenomenon is met with quite often in 
nature and when we can produce it, it proves generally that we have 
reached a reasonably true idea about the subject in question. Before we 
leave our simple loop and electro-magnet I like to call your attention to an¬ 
other point and that is that we cau predeterminate the way our coil is to 
move and by simply reversing the poles of our magnet, that is change 
the direction of our lines of force, we see, that the coil moves the other 
way, but, again keeping the electro-magnet or direction of the lines of 
force as we had it last, if we now reverse the current by changing connec¬ 
tions, we see, that the effect is the same, or that the coil moves in oppo¬ 
site direction, that is in the same direction as in the first case. Of course 
this action is limited to a certain angle and if we want to produce contin- 
ous motion we must supply means whereby we can either bring new 
coils into play or move our electromagnet. As the electromagnets are 
generally too heavy to be easily moved we must provide new coils at cer¬ 
tain intervals and automatically change the currents in them, when the 
action so requires. In all those experiments with this coil ( b ) I have only 
used one side of it, but of course there is no reason whatever why we 
should not use the other side just as well only we must remember that if 
the current goes in one direction in this lower one, it goes in the oppo¬ 
site in the upper one and therefore must either the wires move in the op¬ 
posite direction, or the lines of force. With those facts in mind, the 
problem to be solved, was how to get continuity of action. The best 
solution of this problem is effected when the coils are mounted on a shaft, 
concentric with which the electro-magnets are arranged and when in¬ 
stead of keeping each coil separate for itself they are all connected in an 
endless coil to which current is fed from two diametrically opposite points 
in case of a bi-polar machine, with which arrangement continuity of ac¬ 
tion is gained. 

In order to make this clear for ourselves, let us consider how the 
• currents would flow in such a structure. L,et the Fig. 6 represent an 
endless coil of bare wire, bent in the shape of a circle. Select two di¬ 
ametrically opposite turns, so situated that we 
have just as many turns on one side of this 
diameter as on the other. Make the connections 
and allow the current to flow. As we have the 
same number of turns on each side of the contact 
or brush where the current is supposed to enter 
and as those turns are supposed to be of the same 
wiie, length and electrical resistance, the current 
will divide equally, as there is no reason why 
more of it should go one way than the other, and 
the current will follow the turns as marked by the 
arrows. By mounting this coil on a shaft and 
surrounding it with a magnetic field, we can, from 
our previous experiment, say that we can produce 

98 










motion, because our wire, carrying currents, is placed across the path of 
our lines of force. As the current in both branches flows in opposite 
directions, and, when the coils rotate around their axis , the directions of 
motion in the two halves being also opposite, the tendency, with lines of 
force stationary, is for both halves to assist each other in the effort to 
produce motion. 

In another way of looking at it we may say that, as the current follows 
the arrows, it creates poles and each branch produces poles of the same 
kind, because both current and direction of winding are opposite in the 
two branches, and results in an effect of the same kind as if we simply 
had, side by side, two steel magnets with the same poles turned in the same 
direction. If we now, keeping our brushes stationery, move the ring so 
that the brushes rest on the next two convolutions, we see that new poles 
have been created, but that their places in space are unchanged. This 
insures continuity of action. 

The part of the practical machine, which takes care of this changing 
the direction of currents in the coils, but keeps the poles stationary in 
space, we call the commutator. 

If we remember, that a current, flowing in a coil in the direction the 
hands of a watch move, produces, looking down on it, a south pole, we 
can determine in which direction our coil is going to move. Following 
this rule and denoting with (s) a south with (n) a north pole, as marked 
on Fig. 6, our coil will move in direction, marked on same Fig. 6, of 
arrow as always two equal poles, (south and south) repel, and 1 two un¬ 
equal (north and south) attract each other. As we just now have seen, 
we can in this manner produce continuous motion. As this is true, so is 
also the reverse of it true, or if we supply motion and magnetism, we 
will produce electricity. 

Before proceeding any farther, it might be well once more to call 
attention to the fact that, in order to make a modern machine of our 
imaginary one, we could not afford to have the lines of force pass through 
air all the way from one pole to the other and for that reason we would 
have to put, inside of our coil, rings of soft iron, which would offer 
an easier path for the lines of force and thus reduce the resistance of the 
magnetic circuit. 

I might mention here, how we can compare different magnetic cir¬ 
cuits in regards to their resistances. The simplest way is to use a fine 
wire of Bismuth, wound in a spiral. Bismuth has the property, that its 
electrical resistance increases in certain proportion to the number of lines 

of force, which go through it. Surrounding 
some part of our magnetic circuit with a coil 
of wire and sending various currents through 
the coil, we measure the electrical resistance 
of our bismuth spiral for each current. 
From those data we plot a curve, which will 
have a shape, something like Fig. 7. The 
shape of the curve shows that the larger the 
number of such lines we want to drive 
through the same space the larger the force 
we must expend. Such a line or curve rep- 

99 





resenting the behavior of the magnetic circuit of a Motor or a 
Dynamo gives the constructor valuable information and is used for that 
purpose. 

As we now have seen how we can produce electricity by machines, I 
will state here one of the most important electrical laws namely, the one 
that is known as OHM’S law. It says that, in continuous current cir¬ 
cuits, the current (amperes) flowing through those circuits, no matter how 
complex they are, is directly proportional to the “ Electro-motive force,’ 

“ Potential ” or “ Volts ” and inversely as the resistance or “ Ohm’s ” of 
those circuits ; or to use mathematical language : 

E VOLTS 

C = — or AMPERES =- 

R OHMS 


That simple law is almost the key to all continuous current problems 
and for that reason a most important one. 

The laws and experiences just recited, constitute the fundamental 
principles necessary to produce a modern machine. To go into detail of 
the mechanical construction seems unnecessary as we are all familiar 
with them. I may say that, from the geometrical shape, the armatures 
have been classified in RING, DRUM or CYLINDER and DISC. The 
theoretical principles are exactly alike in all of them and the difference 
lies only in the mechanical construction. Nearly all armature cores of 
the present day, are made up of thin rings or discs of soft iron insulated 
more or less from each other, strung on a shaft or bushing and securely 
clamped or riveted together. Most of the modern ones have their wires 
or bars imbedded in the iron, in order to reduce the magnetic resistance 
to a minimum. The reason why toothed armatures have not been in so 
general use heretofore lies in the fact, that the teeth, when they revolve 
in front of a pole piece, produce wasteful currents in the mass of the 
iron, causing excessive heating and waste of power. Various -ways to 
prevent this loss have been devised and are used. By making the num¬ 
ber of teeth large or, what means the same thing, making the grooves 
deep and narrow, together with proper distance in the air gap or space 
between armature and pole pieces, they are overcome to a certain extent. 
Of course if we laminate the pole pieces themselves, or lay our wires 
in grooves with narrow openings in the armature surface or put them 
entirely under the surface, or if we wind over the whole outside surface 
of the armature a layer of iron w T ire concentric 
with the shaft, we can obviate this loss and reap the 
benefit of the better magnetic circuit. The armature 
is, as a general rule, the movable part of the machine 
and the field the stationary one. Of all parts of the 
modern machine the field is the one that is met 
with in the most variable shapes. I have here in 
Figs. 8, 9 and 10, some of those more generally seen 
in practice. Fig. 8 represents a bipolar type 
generally known as the Edison. It is found in all 
possible positions such as standing on the pole 





IOO 











pieces, on the yoke, lying down on the magnet limb and others. It has 
a single magnetic circuit in the field, and as usual in bipolar machines, 
it has a double one in the armature. We see, from Fig. 8, that the mag¬ 
netic lines of force, due to the current in the field coils, follow closely 
the mechanical construction of the iron part of the machine, a very 
commendable feature. 

Fig. 9 is also a bipolar type known under 
the name of Manchester. The same remarks 
as made over the Edison type, hold good for 
this, with this difference, that we here have 
two magnetic circuits in the field instead of 
one, which for motor purposes has certain ad¬ 
vantages because of the greater constancy of 
the field against variation in potential and 
therefore greater constancy of speed. 

Fig. io represents a part of a Multipolar 
machine frame, as we mostly see it in practice. 
The same can be said of this type, as has been 
said of the two previous ones. It has, if we 
consider each pair of poles as a unit, a double 
magnetic circuit like the Manchester type. As 
a general rule it can be said, that the magnetic 
circuit must, as much as possible, follow the 
curves of the lines of force, and that any 
serious deviation is apt to lead in the wrong 
direction. 

This small motor however, is a good illus¬ 
tration of the fact that it may sometimes appear advisable to sacrifice 
some of the efficiency for the sake of neatness in appearance, conven¬ 
ience in manufacturing and cheapness generally. 

As we all realize, both motors and dynamos are simply means for 
transferring, the first, electrical energy to mechanical, and the latter, 
mechanical into electrical. In either case it is of importance to clearly 
understand the relation between electrical and mechanical units. 

We all know that work is done when a weight is lifted to a certain 
height, or that the product of weight, measured in pounds, and the 
height measured in feet, to which the weight has been lifted during this 
unit of time, gives us a measure of power and we say that one Horse- 
Power (we will in the future designate horse-power H. P.) is equivalent 
to 33000 foot-pounds per minute, and this constitutes our practical unit 
of power and means that one H. J?. has been expended or stored up, 
when we lift during one minute, one pound 33000 feet high or 33000 
pounds one foot high during the same time. It is entirely indifferent 
whether we lift one pound or any number of pounds to a given height 
measured in feet, provided only, that the product is 33000, we have used 
up work to the amount of one H. P. 

The practical unit of electrical pressure corresponding to unit of 
of weight (pounds) is called VOLT, In the same way the practical unit 






IOI 












of current, corresponding to height or feet is called AMPERE, and the 
product of those, sometimes called VOLT-AMPERE, or also WATTS 
is the electrical unit of power corresponding to foot-pounds. As work 
or power must be the same, independent of the units chosen, we will 
have to remember, that one H. P., 33000 foot-ponnds or 746 Watts, all per 
minute, are different names for the same thing. This gives us means 
to convert mechanical units into electrical, and vice versa. 

We very often hear people say, that so and so many Amperes is one 
H. P., but that is of course incorrect and really does not mean anything 
before we know the pressure, potential or volts producing the current. 
First by multiplying this number of volts with the current and dividing 
with 746 do we get at the H. P. 

I have not said anything regarding another way of measuring work, 
as it probably has been told to you before. I may, however, remind you 
that work is also expended by increasing the temperature of a body and 
is generally measured in heat units. One British heat unit, that is 
the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of one pound of 
water in one second one degree Fahrenheit, is equal to 772 foot-pounds 
per second. As we know before that 33000 foot pounds per minute or 
550 foot-pounds per second is equal to one H. P. or 746 watts, we can 
figure out that one British heat unit is equal to 1047 watts per second. 

As I said a little while ago, motors and dynamos are only means for 
transforming energy of one form into another, and, as we find all over in 
nature, such transformation is always accomplished only Dy wasting or 
using up a certain amount of this available energy. The transformation 
of electrical into mechanical energy or vice versa , is really from that 
standpoint, very good, as we do build machines giving an efficiency as high 
as 97 per cent, that is using up only 3 per cent, in effecting the transforma¬ 
tion. If we remember, that we will loose from 3 to 8 per cent, in a belt 
only, we see that such a figure is quite remarkable. Of course the 
smaller the machines are the harder it is to keep the efficiency high, but 
still, we can to-day buy in open market a 2 H. P. motor or dynamo, 
with a guaranteed efficiency of from 80 to 85 per cent. 

In order to gain such figures as mentioned above, the greatest care 
must be taken. The most important and unavoidable losses can be said 
to be divided into : 

FRICTIONAL, such as bearings, air resistance, brushes and others. 

ELECTRICAL, heating of wires through which a current is flowing, 
due to the resistance of the wire. 

MAGNETICAL, due to leakage, hysteresis and eddy currents. 

How to bring those losses down to a minimum belongs to the Elec¬ 
trical Engineer, but as general rules, it can-be said that: 

BEARINGS, ought to be well in line and provided with abundant oil 
supply. 

ELECTRICAL resistance of armature as low as possible, resistance of 
field-circuit, if a shunt-machine, as high as possible, if a series- 
machine as low as possible. 

ARMATURE—PLATES, of soft thin iron and, if provided with teeth 
means to prevent wasteful'currents in pole-pieces. 


102 



Most of those losses will appear as heat, but it is far from true to say, 
that because a machine is hot, it is not economical. In fact one machine 
may be quite warm and still have a very much better efficiency, than an¬ 
other machine, which runs cool. This may be accounted for by the fact, 
that the temperature of a machine depends not only on the quantity of 
heat generated, but also on the heat dissipated. 

As a final conclusion the following rule of thumb may be given : the 
slower a machine gets up to its final temperature, under given load, the 
better is the efficiency of that machine. 

In the brief time allotted I have, as I stated in the beginning, con¬ 
fined myself to fundamental principles and facts and necessarily not 
touched on how to make motors and dynamos, but tried to give you an- 
idea of some of the rules and conditions, that ought to be found in good 
modern machines. 


I03 


FINANCES OF ELECTRIC LIGHTING. 


BY 

WALTER H. JOHNSON, Secretary. 


The designation and use of finances, as understood to-day, began in 
the 13th and 14th centuries. It was about this time that the words 
ii Finare , \ to pay a fine or subsidy and “Financial payment of money, 
were employed principally by French writers to denote those bargains by 
which the indefinite liabilities of ancient holdings of lands or buildings 
were commuted for fixed sums payable to the immediate lord of the 
tenant. 

The word “Finance” is derived from the above words “Finare” and 
“Financial and “Finis”, end ; and Webster tells us that it means “The 
income of a ruler or a state.” 

Owing to the confidential nature of my position, I am somewhat em¬ 
barrassed when discussing the income or finances of the Edison Company 
of Philadelphia, and can merely allude to some points or talk in the ab¬ 
stract, the details of which would probably prove most interesting ; I 
shall therefore confine my remarks more to general business principles, 
the financial department, our system of keeping accounts and looking 
after the finances, and shall endeavor to avoid the usual dryness of statis¬ 
tical talk by the use of the conversational rather than the oratorical style. 
I shall endeavor to show you how carefully the expenses of each depart¬ 
ment are kept, the result of the work of the men in each department, 
watched from month to month, and the expenses of maintaining each 
department. 

Profit is the gravitation law of the industrial world, and corporations, 
like individuals, should ever be looking into their resourses and expenses. 

The art of saving is as necessary for corporations to learn as it is for 
individuals, and the old saying “Take care of the pennies and the dollars 
will take care of themselves” is not only a very true one but very applica¬ 
ble to Electric Light business where your profits are the x /% of a cent saved, 
and you have to keep down the price of selling your product or current 
to meet the price of $1.00 gas ; or so near to it that your customers prefer 
paying the small increase for the better, safer and more healthful elec- 



trie current. This remark applies more to the business portion of the 
district, where the business man is watching every penny of expense just 
as much as the management of the Electric Light Company is. 
At his house it is somewhat different ; there, it is considered 
more in the nature of a luxury and elegance, together with the elegant op¬ 
portunity for decorative effects, especially on special occasions; hence 
the cost is not so much a factor if the business is making money; 
but at the store it becomes a more potent factor of expense, and must be 
more carefully guarded. 

Then, we have the isolated plant to guard against. The price of 
current must be kept so low that it would be unprofitable for a customer 
to put in a plant and manufacture his own electricity ; and even remove 
the thought of an isolated plant as far from his mind as the installation 
of an independent gas plant is now. 

By not keeping a correct and careful account of every expense inci¬ 
dental to the running of an isolated plant and all the pros and cons, there 
are some who think that they are saving money by manufacturing their 
own current; but I shall discuss this subject later on, and merely intro¬ 
duce it now to emphasize the necessity of closely watching expenses, 
thus producing the light cheaper and enabling it to be sold cheaper. 

By way of illustrating the immense growth in finances of electrical 
enterprises, I collected the following data. 

August, 1882, the first Edison Central Station was installed at Apple- 
ton, Wisconsin, with a capacity of 250 lights and driven by water power. 
The Pearl St. Station, New York City, was under construction at the same 
time, but it was not started until three weeks later ; it was however the first 
station in the world to distribute current for incandescent lamps by a 
comprehensive system of underground conductors. 

Then followed the Sunbury, Penn’a., Station, July, 4th, 1883., with a 
Capacity of 500 lights; and was the first Central Station to adopt the 
three-wire system and to use the Edison Chemical Meter commercially. 
The first three-wire underground system was laid in Brockton, Mass. 

A few weeks ago I read that there is now invested more than $800, 
000,000 in commercial applications of electricity, and that these figures 
are being increased by fioo,000,000 annually, showing a most wonderful 
increase in about \\V Z years. 

This is truly called the “Age of Electricity”, and the degree ot com¬ 
mercial success of this new force is only limited by the ability to produce 
and to distribute it cheaply. 

As stockholders invest their money for profits and not for scientific 
experiments, the industry must be worked so as to create a profit, and 
every man connected with the Station and office has the opportunity to- 
enhance the ability of the Company to continue to give him employ¬ 
ment by increasing his intelligence, skill and efficiency ; and aiding in 
every degree of profit produced. You also prepare yourself for promo¬ 
tion, and what better example do you wish than the present Board of 
Control, every member of which has risen from the ranks to their pres mt 
position. 


105 


The time is sure to arrive in the affairs of large concerns, when the 
directing Head must depend on others to some extent. 

I speak of this, as it seems to me very pertinent to the subject of 
successful financiering of Electric Light and other Companies; and by 
this I mean the result, which is profits earned. This is not possible with 
figure heads in charge of the different departments, with a lot of super¬ 
numeraries around them half employed, so as to add to their importance 
and the “dignity” of their position. Then again, the disease is conta¬ 
gious, it passes all down the line to the office boy, or the lowest grade of 
employment in any department, and there is general apathy if not in¬ 
dolence all through the Company ; hence the possible profits are con¬ 
sumed by the ^’s of a cent expenses. 

Success requires conscientious, honest and faithful, as well as effic¬ 
ient hardworking Officers and Heads of departments, just as much as the 
rank and file of the men. It also requires eternal vigilance and uniform 
courtesy in all departments; and it is every man’s duty to employ him¬ 
self to his full capacity, as best he can. 

In speaking of courtesy, I am reminded of a little experience I had 
some years ago, when the Company was first started. A customer made 
a complaint that a fuse had blown ; unfortunately the inspectors were 
all out and probably a half hour had elapsed, when the customer walked 
into the office again and was extremely abusive, would listen to no ex¬ 
planation, and finjally became personal in his abuse. What followed you 
can imagine. fi reported the case to the then General Manager and 
Supervising Engineer. Aftering hearing what I had to say, he solemnly 
pronounced the verdict, ‘‘Not guilty, ” but don’t do it again.” This 
man is still a customer and a profitable one; but many a dollar is lost to 
a Company by impoliteness and harsh treatment of customers, and the 
reverse is true,—many a customer saved by polite treatment when he has 
4 ‘blood in his eyes”. . 

j When taking up the different accounts, it was my intention to make 
comparisons between the four largest Edison Illuminating Companies; 
but owing to the different methods of keeping accounts and charging ex¬ 
penses, I abandoned the idea, as this information could only be gathered 
by a careful analysis of their books, which of course is out of the question. 

As an example of what I mean, I will take only one item ‘‘Coal ac¬ 
count”. In Philadelphia we charge to this account the cost of coal at 
the mine, freight, storage in yards, hauling to Station, ashes from Station, 
wages of Coal Passers, Water Tenders and Superintendence, as well as 
labor, cleaning, boilers, and all repairs to them as far as the main line valve ; 
material used, and even the repairs to elevators and wagons, as we con¬ 
sider them a necessity merely for the coal. In other words, whatever 
expense is incurred, directly, or indirectly in the production of steam, is 
charged to coal account. 

Through the courtesy of the Vice-President and General Manager of 
a large Edison Station, I learned that when buying coal by cargo, all ex¬ 
penses such as the coal, freight, insurance, cost of unloading, repairs to 
bins, etc. are charged to “stock fuel”. The coal is served out to the 


106 


Stations as required, at a price fixed every six months or so, this price 
being intended to leave no profit or loss whenever stock is taken of the 
amount on hand. Of course, there is always a small profit or loss, since 
all the expenses cannot be exactly forseen ; but the price is arranged to 
keep it as small as possible. This coal is served out to the Stations as. 
required, and coal is also bought in small lots from dealers. This oper¬ 
ating expense is charged to “Coal”. If it is carted from a dealer, or from 
the bins to a Station in another part of the City, the cost is charged to 
“Carting coal”. The expense of loading the carts and weighing the coal 
at the bins, and of loading the coal into the Hunt conveyer, which car¬ 
ries the coal into the 3rd Station, is charged to “Labor of fuel”. The 
cost of carting away ashes is charged to “carting ashes.” These four 
accounts, being the whole coal expense outside the stations, make up the 
“Operating fuel” account. 

Inside the Station, any expense of handling the coal to in front of 
the boilers is “handling coal,” firing it is “firing coal” and cleaning, sweep¬ 
ing, etc. is “cleaing in boiler room.” 

Any work handling ashes is charged to “handling ashes”. Pay 
given to men while sick or on vacation is charged to “Sickness and va¬ 
cation”, and one or two of the foremen charge some time to “Superin¬ 
tendence in boiler room.” These seven accounts make tip “Labor at 
Station, boiler room.” 

Any labor done by the men repairing boilers, and all material bought 
for repairing them or work on them by outside parties is “Repair and re¬ 
newal boilers”. These are, I believe, the total expenses connected with 
coal. 

The Philadelphia Edison Company has a capital of $2,000,000, of 
which there is paid in $1,847,222,22. Of this amount, $1,450,568,52 was 
spent in Property and Construction accounts, such as Furniture, Build¬ 
ing, Machinery, Electrical Apparatus, Electrical Conductors, Services, 
Meters, Steam, Water and Blast Piping and Workshop Equipment. 

A considerable amount of this ( nearly one half) w 7 as spent in Elec¬ 
trical Conductors, as we w f ere compelled by Councils to put our wires, 
under ground. 

The cost of future repairs was borne in mind by the Supeivising En¬ 
gineer. hence a solid, substantial building was erected, and everything 
done to avoid the usual heavy expenses of repairs; and our books to-day 
show how well this was done ; for, considering that we work 011 the prin¬ 
ciple “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”, and do not 
wait until something has become absolutely bad before making repairs,, 
our repair accounts are very small indeed, as you will note when refer¬ 
ring to them in detail. 

As long as a Company pays regular dividends, the stockholders care 
very little, if any, what system is used in keeping a record of the finances. 
It is true they are desirous of knowing whether they get it “all” or not,, 
and that the dividends are declared from net earnings ; but they employ 
an auditor to look after that part for them and rest contented upon re¬ 
ceiving his yearly statement and affidavit that the books have been ex- 


amined and found correct; but I trust such is not the feeling of those 
present this evening; and even at the risk of being a little wearisome, I 
will ask you to follow the system used by the Philadelphia Edison Com¬ 
pany, as the same careful study and attention to details is given to the 
financial part of the business that is given to the mechanical portion. 

You, of course, are aware that in Double Entry book-keeping every 
Debit must have a Credit and vice versa , and that the Debit side of the 
Ledger must be either Resources or Losses and that the Credit side, either 
Liabilities or Gains. 

You have heard the Chief of the Meter Department tell you about 
the weighing of plates by two weighers, who are not allowed to compare 
notes; well from these weights he calculates the lamp or horse power 
hours, enters the same in books provided for that purpose, which become 
the books of original entry. I mention this fact, as you all may not 
know, that in a suit at Court it is the first books in which an entry or ac¬ 
count is made, called as above “Books of original entry,’’ that must be 
produced and the accuracy of the account sworn to on what is written 
there ; so you see books of original entry are important to preserve. After 
entering the bills in these books, they are transmitted to the General 
Agent for entry in the Consumer’s Ledger, each individual’s account 
debited or charged, and the amount credited to Light and Power. 

The first thing every morning, the General Agent takes the Cashier’s 
Cash Be.ok and credits the Consumers’ account for all bills paid the pre¬ 
vious day, and charges the amount to the Treasurer. Later on when re¬ 
ferring in a similar way to our Mdse. Department, you will see how 
utterly futile it would be for any employe to take advantage of the Com¬ 
pany, as he would have to have so many accomplices, that the returns 
would be too small for the risk. After posting the amounts paid, atten¬ 
tion is given to those customers whose bills were rendered seven days 
previous and not yet paid ; a polite circular letter is sent to these delin¬ 
quents reminding them that their bill has not yet been paid, and that 
they have three days more in which to pay it, or the current will be cut 
off; at the end of ten days, if not yet paid, notice is given the Meter 
Department to cut them off, so that we only lose this bill and ten days 
current if a customer intends to defraud us. If cut off, the account is 
immediately placed in Legal Collections and in a few days our Counsel 
is after them. 

This iron clad rule and system is severely criticized ; but one of the 
secrets of success in business is, to avoid trusting too much on book ac¬ 
counts, for many an insolvent man can trace his downfall in business to 
his endless, which in time grow to be worthless accounts. In fact, it is 
generally not so much in the quantity of the commodity sold, as it is in 
getting the money for that which has been sold, that leads to success. 

Prompt collections are very essential to financial success (in not only 
electric lighting, but any other business) ; otherwise, when the Board of 
Directors meet to declare a dividend, the profit may only be on paper and 
not in the bank, it being tied up in a lot of uncollected, and in a grea\ 
many instances uncollectible bills, as it is harder to collect five or six 


108 


bills than it is to collect one ; hence you swell your list of bad accounts 
and decrease your quick assets. 

How much easier it is for us to pay our bills within a reasonable 
time after they have been presented, than it is to pay them after the bills 
have accumulated. 

In our Mdse. Department more time is given, as most business is 
done on 60 and 90 day bills. We endeavor, however, to have our cus¬ 
tomers pay on the first of the month following date of bill but we ex¬ 
tend the time to the regular pay day, which with most concerns is from 
the 15th to the 20th of the month ; but if the bills are not paid in 60 days, 
and in a few specially good concerns 90 days (the extreme limit of credit), 
the Executive and Finance Committee are consulted and the account 
transferred to Legal Collections ; and before again opening the account, 
we insist upon being paid the cost of collecting the previous account. The 
result is, they are forever afterwards prompt in remitting tor goods pur¬ 
chased. It is true users of lamps and wiring firms are somewhat com¬ 
pelled to buy their Edison commodities from us; but there is so much 
laxity in collecting accounts in most businesses, that the majority of 
large concerns admire prompt collections. It is generally the man with 
a small bank account, who is feeling somewhat dubious about his credit,' 
that objects and get mad. 

I should state here, that in case a Light and Power consumer, whose 
account has been transferred to Legal Collections, wants current again> 
a deposit according to the size of previous bills is required, before again 
replacing the fuses ; and as long as the fuses remain in the cut-outs, this 
deposit remains with the Company. The customer is never given the 
second opportunity to default in payment. 

The result of prompt collections is as follows :— 

In 1894 the bills written for light power amounted to many thousands 
of dollars, but we failed to collect only $385.98. The bills written for Mer¬ 
chandise amounted to nearly $78,000.00, and we failed to collect $11.98. 
The ‘proof of the pudding is in the eating’. 

From the Sales Book the Store Clerk posts the Accounts Receivable 
Ledger, that is, charges the customer’s account and credits Merchandise ; 
and from the Cashier’s Cash book credits the customers’ accounts with 
the amount paid and charges the Treasurer. By transfer vouchers, the 
amounts charged to Treasurer on both the Accounts Receivable and the 
Light and Power Ledgers are transferred at the end of each month to the 
General Ledger kept by him. You see by this that both these 
Ledgers lead up to the Treasurer’s books and have to balance each 
month. This system readily commends itself as an exceedingly good 
one. The Treasurer must account for all that is charged to him by 
two different persons in separate departments, and not under his control. 

Having examined the method of entering that which has been sold 
and guarding the cash which has been received, we will pass on to ex¬ 
penses and see what care is taken to carefully charge every cent spent 
to the proper department, and not make one department suffer for the 
benefit of another. 


109 


There is no use of “juggling” with accounts so as to have a “good” 
annual financial statement that does not tell the exact truth ; better have 
each account tell you exactly the expense incurred ; you then know, the 
Directors and Stockholders know just how your finances stand. A great 
many surplus accounts are only on paper, and this thought invariably 
occurs to me when looking over a statement, showing a surplus account, 
and wonder how much of it really exists. I fancy that in a great many 
cases the money has been spent in betterments ; or more properly speak¬ 
ing, renewals. 

Before taking up the Expense Journal, which shows the total as well 
as the detail business for the month, let us look into the system of or¬ 
dering and checking the bills. 

The foreman or person in charge makes out a Station order for what 
is wanted. This is approved by the Head of his Department, and the cost 
estimated. It is then sent to the order clerk, and a regular order, in dup¬ 
licate, is made out and presented to the Secretary; if he has any doubts 
as to the expenditure, it is turned over to the President. The bill fpr the 
material is checked by the man who received the material, approved by 
the Head of Department and the prices checked and extensions verified 
by the Order Clerk, who places it in a voucher ; after the Secretary has 
seen that the amount has been charged to the proper account or accounts, 
it is then approved by the President; or, if Merchandise account, by the 
Secretary and turned over to the Treasurer for entry in Expense Journal. 
By the time the order and bill have passed through this system, which is 
commonly called “red tape”, you feel sure that it is a proper expenditure 
at a proper price. 

The thought at once occurs to you that this is expensive, requiring 
an extra clerk. By having good conscientious men who desire to do a full 
day’s work for a fair return in wages, it is done by the regular force that 
must necessarily be employed. Hence the only expense incurred is the 
printer’s bill, that does not amount to much ; and we even get back this 
small cost, with a profit as the printing is done by a motor run by current 
from our Central Station. 

The Expense Account is divided into Constant General Expenses, 
Operating Supplies and Expenses and Repairs. 

Constant General Expenses include such items as rent, insurance, 
taxes, etc. which are constant. Corporations seem to be taxed at every 
turn, and it is a constant source of annoyance and expense. Taxes are 
like the poor, “always with us.” 

Operating Supplies and Expenses include such items as Coal, Damp 
Renewals, Workshop Supplies, Meter Expense and wages paid for oper¬ 
ating Dynamo and Engine Rooms, &c., &c. The expenses of the Boiler 
Room, you will recall, were charged to Coal Account. 

In 1894 the expenses of these three subdivisions amounted to nearly 
$210,000.00, of which amount $89,704.53 was for wages paid to the men in 
the works alone. Of the total amount of expenses, $48,019.62 or 8.2 per 
cent, was expended for Constant General Expenses, $137,922.00 or 65.8 per 
cent, for Operating Supplies and Expenses and only $22,953.16 or 10.9 per 


HO 


cent, for Repairs to Machinery, Piping, Station, Electrical Apparatus and 
Street Repairs and Maintenance. Of this amount, a little over $9,000.00 
was for Street Repairs and Maintenance, leaving only $13,000.00 or about 
6 per cent, of actual expenses for the balance ; and when you consider that 
the City authorities will not issue a general permit, as they do in other 
cities, but make us take out a permit for each hole, for which $4.00 must 
be paid, and that the streets under which our tubes are laid have im¬ 
proved pavements guaranteed for 10 years, hence the repaving must be 
done by the contractors, this amount is small ; and during the winter 
months the work must be done at night, thus making the work still more 
expensive. 

This Station has been running continuously for 6 years and last year 
the repairs to the Station were only $1,008.26, Repairs to Electric Appara¬ 
tus $5,428.15, Steam, Water and Blast Piping $3,238.85 and Steam Machin¬ 
ery $4,169.29. 

This Repair Account has been itemized for two reasons, ist : It may 
prove interesting to you to know these proportions. 

2nd : To show the result of carefully selecting and securing the 
best when building and equipping a Station. 

In connection with this matter it is, of course, conceded that all 
depends upon the ability of the Supervising Engineer and General 
Manager to select the “best*’ and sufficient “sand” to insist that the 
“best” shall be delivered. Giving contracts to the lowest bidders is a bad 
practice and the most expensive, as will be shown by the careful examina¬ 
tion of the repair account of many an industry. 

If the policy of “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” 
had not been faithfully adhered to, the Repair account of this Company 
would no doubt be still smaller; but the time surely arrives when you pay 
for violating the laws with compound interest added. Then the divi¬ 
dend is probably passed or the borrowing from banks resorted to. 

In the items charged to Operating Supplies and Expenses, which you 
will recall as amounting to 65.8 per cent, of the total expenses, Lamp 
Renewals amounted to $15,786.44, or 7.5 per cent, of total expenses, and 
nearly 1 per cent, on the capital invested. This matter has been and is 
now receiving very serious consideration by Managers of Central Stations. 

Upon investigating this matter, seven Managers of Central Stations 
kindly responded to my inquiry; and I find three are still furnishing free 
Lamp Renewals and four are now charging for them or permitting the 
customers to purchase where they please. One Company having only 
an installation of about 2,500 lamps, renewed nearly 10,000 lamps, which is 
a very heavy expense. I know from examination, that high potential and 
not bad lamps, is the cause of this. The average potential was i2]/ z per 
cent. high. (Paper of A. D. Page, Incandescent Lamps—their use and 
abuse—.) 

The average number of lamps (not including motors) we had connect¬ 
ed during the whole of 1894, was equivalent to 58,399 sixteens ; and we 
renewed 64,596, or the quivalent in sixteens of 68,377, making the renewals 
1.1 lamps for every lamp connected, and the ratio of cost per lamp con¬ 
nected 27 cents for the year. 


111 



Some consumers will not even take the trouble to return their black¬ 
ened lamps to be exchanged for new ones ; hence we found it good policy 
to, once each year, take out every lamp a customer has and put in new 
ones. These old lamps are tested by a photometer, and all that are 15 
c. p. and above we put back into stock. 

When this Company was first started, services were put in and lamps in¬ 
stalled, as well as renewed, free of charge; but when reducing the price 
of current, the Board of Directors found it necessary to charge for the ser¬ 
vice at actual cost and for the first installation of lamps; but continued 
to renew them free, when returned with the glass unbroken. It is still, 
however, a question in the minds of some of the Directors, that the ex¬ 
pense of renewals should be a part of the customers’ expense and not of 
the Operating Expenses of the Station. It may be necessary to erase 
this item from the books of the Company when endeavoring to reduce 
expenses still further to meet the price of $1.00 gas; but if Central Station 
customers should adopt the bad practice of isolated plant owners, of try¬ 
ing to get life instead of light out of the lamps with the least possible 
amount of energy, it will become a much more serious matter to the Com¬ 
pany than the expense of renewing lamps ; and your customers will cease 
to be your best advertisers. To illustrate this, permit, me to mention a 
case that occurred not long ago. A prominent merchant on Chestnut St. 
rented a store, the former occupant of which had an isolated plant ; the 
plant was discarded as the benefits from using our Central Station cur¬ 
rent had been experienced by the party in question ; but as he got the 4 
Watt lamps formerly used on the plant; almost for nothing, he decided 
that he would use them and replace them with the regular Station 3.1 
Watt lamps, as they burned out. The lamps were old and the light did 
not give satisfaction, but he insisted that it was economy to use them. 
It didn’t take him long to change his mind and install the high economy 
lamp, upon receiving his first bill. 116-16 c. p. lamps were in the store. 
Presuming that they only took .6 Amperes and burned 3.81 hours per day 
(which is estimated from bill), the additional amount of current for which 
he paid was 67 Amperes per day and for 26 week days, the period covered 
by the bill, the total amount was a little over 1700 Amperes, making a 
difference of about $29.00 in his bill. The lamps were changed at once, 
the light and the next bill satisfactory. This is only one case ; with some 
1700 customers, what would be the result? The problem is not worked 
out by the simple rule of three, but by common sense and good business 
judgment. 

In examining Constant General Expenses, such items as Salaries of 
Officers, Rent, Taxes and Royalty, &c. &c., which while necessarily a part 
of the expenses of an electric lighting company, they add to the expense 
of making the light and power, but do not enter into the expense of iso¬ 
lated plant. There are also other items that enter into the expenses of a 
Central Station and not into the expenses of an isolated plant; but I am 
not going into details, as these are sufficient for comparison. 

This, however, naturally raises the question ; does it not cost less to 
make your own light than to take it from a Central Station ? 


I 12 


The question is easily answered by the fact, that theiunit of expense 
is less when manufacturing large quantities than when manufacturing 
small quantises. A Station having the equivalent of 100,000 lamps 
attached can produce the light per lamp hour cheaper than a Station of 
10,000 lamps capacity. We know this from experience ; it costs us less 
to-day to manufacture the light per lamp hour than it did four years ago. 
Hence you can readily see that, if the owner of an isolated plant of 100 to 
1000 light capacity, properly charges every item of expense incurred by 
reason of the operation of the plant, he cannot produce his light as 
cheaply as a large Station". This is one of the principal reasons why 
even large and extensive enterprises combine and form what is commonly 
called a “ Trust,” It is true some few endeavor to restrict production and 
thus increase the profits; but in the majority of cases, increased profits 
can be derived from honest combinations, and even lessen the cost to 
consumers by reason of such combinations. 

But returning to the question of an isolated plant ; it is the firm 
belief of leading managers that it is only a question of time, when it 
will be just as absurd to install an independent electric light plant, where 
you can get current at a fair price from a Central Station, as it would be 
for a person to install a gas plant, when they have gas mains in front of 
the door. 

I have mentioned before the average number of lamps connected 
during the year 1894 ; but the average number of lamps and motors con¬ 
nected to the Station was the equivalent of 86,242 sixteens ; and the total 
output was 45,947,690 lamp hours and 1,022,101 H. P. hours, or a total of 
61,279,205 lamp hours; and as a 16 c. p. lamp is equal to about a 5 foot 
gas burner, the output in gas measurement would be something over 
300,000,000 cubic feet. 

Owing to many lamps being in Office Buildings, where the hours 
are short and very little artificial light is used during the summer months, 
and this also is true of our dwelling houses, that are closed for five or 
six months in the year, the average burning per lamp per working day 
was only 2.27 hours. 

We find our expenses average about $3.00 per lamp per year; this 
means that with 100,000 lamps attached (the full capacity of this Station,) 
every lamp must burn at least 2 hours per working day during the year 
at our present rate, to enable the Company to continue paying 8 per cent, 
dividends, which is a moderate dividend for a manufacturing plant to 
pay. This leaves no surplus for bad debts or contingencies. 

During 1894 the coal delivered on the scales, less the difference be¬ 
tween that in the bunker, Dec. 31st, 1893 and 1894, amounted to 16,881 
tons, or about 46.8 tons burned every day in the year. The total amount 
charged to Coal Account was 166,070.38, making the cost about $3.91 per 
ton. 

The value of your consumers and the Coal Account are two very 
important items to consider in connection with Finances of Electric 
Lighting : and with an underground system, also Street Repairs and 
Maintenance. 


The question of meters is now one of absorbing interest; and as soon 
as a good mechanical meter is found, that will register somewhere near 
the correct amount of current consumed, when subjected«to all kinds of 
rough treatment and temperature, this item of expense will be materi¬ 
ally reduced, possibly a saving of 50 per cent, effected. 

At first the price charged per 16 c. p. lamp hour was \ l /% cents; 
or according to gas measurement, $2.25 per M. cu. ft. Gas was then 
selling at $1.50. The then General Manager recognizing that the com¬ 
petition had to be squarely met, got the Board of Directors to reduce the 
price, October, 1890, to equal gas, or % of a cent per ]6 c. p. lamp 
hour, which is lower than the price charged in any other City in the 
United States, or I think, in the world. An immediate increase in our 
business was the result of this decrease in price. This makes our income 
about i l 4 cents per Ampere hour, or 30 cents per Ampere day ; but the 
reduction of 33^ per cent, had to be met and equalized by either 33^3 per 
cent, increase in business plus the expense of handling the increase, or 
by both increased business and decrease in expenses, to maintain the same 
revenue ; hence the reason for charging for Service Connection and the 
first installation of lamps, to which reference was made a few minutes 
ago. 

The Meter and cut-out are not paid for, and remain the property of 
this Company at all times. Then by a careful analysis of the value of 
all our consumers, which is done at certain intervals, it was found that 
some of them, by reason of a limited use of their lights, the Company 
did not receive from them the cost of maintenance, which you will recall 
was about $3.00 per year, or a trifle less than 1 cent per day. This study of 
the cost of maintaining and revenue derived per lamp and H. P. hour is 
very essential to the success of Electric Lighting. You can readily 
understand that if the revenue per lamp or H. P. or both, does not equal 
the cost, you are simply supplying that current at a loss. The Bullitt 
Building with its 2200 lights was not as profitable as no consumers, hav¬ 
ing 20 lights each. Small consumers are more profitable, as a rule, for 
the reason that they generally have use for every lamp installed, which 
means a revenue of 3 to 6 cents per day per lamp against a cent or less 
revenue from a consumer having a large number of lamps. But the most 
unprofitable of all are dwelling houses, that are open only about 5 
months in the year and closed 7, which means that you carry machinery 
for 7 months without any return, to supply 7 the lights for 5 months, 
Churches, other than Roman Catholics, are also considered unprofitable, 
owing to their limited use of current ; but there is this to be said in favor 
of the churches, they help a Company earn the expenses of running the 
Station on Sundays, and their use during the week is generally after the 
maximum load is off. 

Taking in consideration all the points above mentioned, the reduc¬ 
tion in price, cost and revenue, it was found necessary to have consumers 
guarantee a minimum payment equal to, at least, the cost of maintain- 
ance. That is, if a customer has less than 20-16 c. p. lamps or 2 H. P. or 
or less, the guarantee is $4.62 each four weeks or $60.00 per year ; and 
above that number, 6 cents per week per c. p. lamp and 60 cents per week 

I 14 


per H. P. This means that the customer pays for the cost of keeping 
machinery ready to supply him with current day and night, Sundays and 
Holidays and as the guarantee for lamps amounts to $3.13 per year, a 
profit of 13 cents is pocketed by the Company. 

Another point of weakness was developed by an analysis of the 
motor business for October, 1894. We found that freight elevators below 
10 H. P. were unprofitable, as the revenue derived was not adequate to 
the service rendered. That is, it would be much more profitable to supply 
75 lamps than the equivalent, a five H. P. Motor, taking as a basis 15 
lamps per H. P. At the present minimum rate, a lamp value is 26 cents 
per month, whereas a motor is only 18 cents. We found that Lamp Re¬ 
newals amounted to 27 cents per lamp per year, 2^ cents per month, so 
that at least a lamp is worth 23^ cents, or 5^ cents better than 1 H. P. 
Motor. 

Before the introduction of a motor, it cost for a man’s labor to look 
after the elevator, $ 1.50 per day ; therefore the guarantee for elevator 
motors under 10 H. P. was made $1.00 per day. 

The leakage between the reported Dynamo output and the meter 
returns is now receiving careful investigation by a Committee ; but suf¬ 
ficient data has not yet been gathered to enable me to speak of it to-night, 
but it is pertinent to the subject and worries Managers of Electric Light 
Companies. 

A few remarks about the Log Book and the Board of Control would 
perhaps be proper, but I find that niv time is almost up and the paper 
already quite long; therefore in conclusion, I thank you for your kind 
attention and refer you for further consideration of this subject to a paper 
written by Prof. Marks some years ago, entitled, “How to get paying 
loads for Stations and will apply the closing remarks of a learned law 
professor to his students, to close my talk. “ Gentlemen : Move Heaven : 
Move Earth ; to carry the jury.” This was the object to be attained by 
studying law—The object to be attained by studying Finance is, 
Gentlemen : Move Heaven : Move Earth, to pay dividends. 


HISTORY OF THE EDISON ELECTRIC LIGHT CO. 
OF PHILADELPHIA, 


BY 

PROFESSOR WM. D. MARKS. 

President, 


In talking over the matter of a course of lectures, I agreed with the 
committee to tell the story of the building of this station, as a final lec¬ 
ture. In doing that, I will have to take you into my confidence and tell 
you a good many things that perhaps you have never known before; and I 
will have to do another thing that I regret to do—I will have to talk a 
great deal about myself, but it is impossible to avoid this where one has been 
engineer, general manager and president of a corporation, starting with 
nothing at all and then ending up with the largest isolated station in 
the world—it is impossible for me to do otherwise than to talk about 
myself a good deal. 

The thing that has rendered this station possible is this little thing 
that you see over your heads—the Edison electric light invented by 
Thomas A. Edison. Out of that has grown everything that you see 
around you. 

Within a short time the Courts of the United States have wrongfully 
taken away from Edison the last two years of his patent, but it does not 
make much difference to him, because long before the courts got at it 
and decided against him, the financiers of New York had practically ab¬ 
sorbed the thing and left him to work on other inventions. 

In 1884, the Franklin Institute gave an exhibition which was the 
first public appearance of any note of the incandescent light in 
Philadelphia. 

That exhibition was visited by all the people of Philadelphia and a 
great many from outside of it; and as a result, attention was directed 
to the Incandescent light. 




A party of five gentlemen, knowing little or nothing of science, but 
having seen the light and admired it, and having great confidence in 
Edison’s genius, got together and organized an electric lighting company. 
These gentlemen were Mr. B. K. Jamison, Mr. Samuel B. Huey, Mr. 
Charles M. Swain, Henry M. Dechert and Amos R. Little. 

Their first plan was a very modest one, indeed. They were going to 
subscribe one hundred thousand dollars, and with their friends assistance, 
they were going to put up a station that would furnish ten thousand 
lights. Well, they thought this matter over and deliberated some time— 
for a year or so—this was in 1886—when they came together and finally 
decided, after conferring with a good many, amongst others myself, to 
increase the capital of this station to a million dollars, as the New York 
Station was thinking of doing the same at that time—in fact had done 
it. 

After finally deciding on a million dollars and obtaining sufficient 
subscriptions, they decided to complete the station. 

At that time I was called in. A million dollars was supposed to be 
sufficient to build a station which would light about 25,000 to 30,000 lights. 
In receiving my instructions from the leading or managing director, I 
was instructed to procure lots of about the same area as the Twenty-sixth 
Street Station in New York city, which was then in process of erection. 
On measuring that up, I found that they had about 7,000 to 8,000 square 
feet of surface—of floor surface—and so we began our search for real es¬ 
tate, and finally landed upon this piece of property, the inducement being 
that the station would be located in the midst of those most likely to use 
and consume the light. 

The main object of locating a station right in the heart of the con¬ 
sumers section was to save copper. The most expensive thing about a 
station is the immense amount of copper that is required to carry the cur¬ 
rents, not only in the streets, but also in the building itself. 

Upon looking into the plans of those who had gone before me, I was 
by no means satisfied that 30,030 lights was all that could be gotten into 
so limited an area as was allotted to me. Little by little in thinking the 
matter over, my ideas expanded to 50,000, from that to 100,000, and final¬ 
ly to 150,000, which is the size upon which this station is designed to-day. 
We have at this present moment, in fact, 94,500 lights or in their equiv- 
lents, either actually attached or about to be attached. It will not be very 
long before we have 100,000 attached, which is all that the copper in the 
streets can carry. We can put more machinery into this station—enough 
to carry 150,000 lights, but we cannot carry the current out into the 
streets—the copper that leads out into the streets will limit us in that 
direction. 

Of course, after fixing on 150,000 attached lights and figuring the 
dimensions, I realized at once that, instead of building such engine 
houses and stations as you ordinarily see, or even such as are seen to-day 
in New York and in Boston, that I would have to build something of ex¬ 
traordinary strength. The weight on our boiler floors is about 4,000,000 
pounds. The weight on this floor on which you are sitting here is about 



1,000,000 pounds. Your dynamos weigh 18 tons apiece, and your engines 
—your larger ones—30 odd tons. We call the 1,000 horse power the 
larger ones. So that you see that the weight supported by the real estate 
that we are on is something enormous. 

It occurred to me that nothing but a rock would support such weight. 
We had no rock. We had bored holes down in this lot to a depth of 20 
to 25 feet, and the best we could find was water gravel. That is regarded 
as a good foundation in Philadelphia and elsewhere, but no such founda¬ 
tion as we wanted. So, we had to make our rock. All of the clay lying 
over the gravel was excavated and borings were made for 18 .feet below the 
curbstone. When we got down there, in cases there were pockets where 
it was lower than 18 feet. So, instead of laying down a slab, a monolith 
of cement and granite of a uniform thickness of four feet, you would 
find, if you could examine it, that it was in some places 10 feet thick, and 
in the thinnest place four feet thick. This slab is 70 feet looking east and 
west, and 100 feet north and south, and on it are placed foundation walls 
made of granite in cement mortar five feet in thickness all around the 
outside. Above it is reared brick walls beginning with four feet in thick¬ 
ness and tapering off according to the load as we go towards the top. 

The history of this station has been one of continued trouble and 
obstruction. The first thing our contractor, Mr. Grubb, did, after he had 
got his hole dug and his foundation started, was to fail. He industriously 
tried to put in anything and everything but what he had agreed to in the 
w^y of concrete, and I came down here and lived on the curbstone and 
saw that he did not put anything else in, and as he found he had to carry 
out his contract, he settled the matter by failing. That made it necessary 
for me to put in this slab and this foundation myself, which I promptly 
did, arranging to come here early in the morning and generally leaving 
here after midnight. 

We had not got well along with the foundations, before the water that 
we had thought of and considered necessary, was brought before the city 
authorities. We intended to put in 10,000 horse power. We were to start 
very modestly with only 1,000, but 10,000 was what was going in. I went 
before the water department; was referred to city councils. The commit¬ 
tee met with a good chance for a strike. Their ultimatum was $ 2,000 
minimum payment per year, and $2.00 per horse power for every horse 
power we put in. There was no use talking about anything of that sort. 
That would be simply working to support our city fathers. And so I 
undertook to dig a well out front here. I made the usual contract. Our 
board is very strong on contracts. It always wants a contract and is not 
satisfied unless a contract is made. 

One contractor dug until the water came up about a foot and an¬ 
nounced he could not dig any more. I asked him why he did not pump 
it out. He said he had. He had a pulsometer pump there and it pumped 
a little bit of a stream about an inch thick, but once in a while a bit of 
gravel got in and he would have to go down and fix it up, and the water 
would come up where it was before. Then I went and made a contract 
with another man. This was a man who did work on a larger scale, and 


I 18 


he brought a locomotive boiler here ; and he brought a bigger pump and 
started in. 

Now, this well runs down a depth of 40 feet below the curbstone, 
and the curbstone is 30 feet above the mean low water mark of the Dela¬ 
ware. I had looked on an old map of the city which showed me that along 
Sansom street, in this neighborhood, ran a stream which emptied into the 
Delaware, and I hoped to strike its gravel bed, so the water, coming from 
the Delaware, would flow in, so we would not have to ask the city water 
works, and would get a surer supply. 

I assure you I was in great trouble when the second man, the greatest 
and best well digger in Philadelphia, announced that he could not get 
deeper. We had three feet of water and he could not pump any more. 
We had to have water enough for this station, and I went to the north 
part of the city and investigated the wells there. I found a man who 
had a mining pump which he said would throw 40,000 gallons an hour. 
I bought it, and a 50 horse power boiler, an upright one, built over it a 
smoke stack—guessing at it, I should say the top was 40 feet from the 
ground—tallest thing you ever saw. The city authorities came along 
and said they would not have a boiler in the street, so I set it up in the 
back alley. At first they did not catch us there. They were not vigilant 
•enough. And we carried the steam pipe right along to the front part, and 
I fitted up the lower end of the mining pump so we could lower it down 
as the well went down. As fast as the men dug out, the pumping cylin¬ 
der would go down and the steam cylinder would stay where it was. It 
was quite a success. I shall never forget the last night and day. I did 
not leave I think, for 36 hours. I was determined we should get water 
enough here. I was determined that well should be thoroughly tested. 
Little by little the stream of water came in larger and larger, until finally, 
going down to the bottom of the well myself, I found streams larger than 
my arm pouring in from the gravel. The steam boiler was made with an 
artificial draft, and the men down below were getting scared because the 
water was coming in so. The pump was jumping, and we went along 
that afternoon splendidly,pouring that water out into the street through an 
8 inch delivery pipe. That night, I made up my mind we had to make 
our rush. We kept the boiler going. The boiler was dancing jigs and 
the pump was pumping for all there was in it, and Sansom street from 
curb to curb was full of water pouring into the sewers and down into Ninth 
street. ,1 was there at the boiler to cheer up the men ; and this thing 
went on until the morning, and finally our counsel came up in the 
morning and said, “what have you been doing? The mayor came to 
me and said you must stop filling up Sansom street with water. ” 

We had pumped 40,000 gallons of water per hour for 28 hours, so I 
very submissively said, “please tell the mayor we will stop. ” We did not 
meddle with that boiler. We were afraid to. We drew the fires. I was 
afraid something would happen. That is the way we got our water. It 
saves us $ 20,000 a year now—quite an important saving. 

It was in the spring of 1888, that the station proper— the building 
you are in—was begun. But, in the autumn of 1887, a large amount of 


pipe tubing—I call it pipe—we call it tubing here—was laid, inside of 
which is the underground conductors of the Edison Company. And 
there again we met with some obstructions. 

Although I had very carefully devised plans presented to me show¬ 
ing that, in other cities, the Edison Company had been allowed to open 
up streets half the street in width and lay its conductors down ; I was 
told immediately by the city electrical authorities, that under no condi¬ 
tion could we have a ditch over three feet in width and but two feet in 
most places. I argued and showed plans. They were obdurate. And 
so we have laid them one above the other. There was no help for it. It 
was either that or not at all. When the time came for laying the tubing our 
time was very brief, because they put a stopping place at the first of 
December, and if we did not get into the streets by then we did not 
know what the Councils might do in the intervening time. Sb, I was in¬ 
structed to lay all the pipe I could and occupy all of the ground I could 
and force things so nobody else could get in, and we did. We had two 
gangs at work—one day and one night, and we kept it up to the last 
moment. We did not stop until nearly Christmas. I used to be notified 
about once a week that we were proceeding in a very irregular way, and 
I used to go down and arrange with our counsel as to what should be 
done—asking what was the punishment for contempt of the Director 
of Public Works. If I was arrested I wanted to be able to get off, and if 
I was to be fined, I wanted the Company to pay the fine. This they 
agreed to, and we went on until Christmas and in the Spring the same 
way, and we succeeded in occupying the best portions of the City of 
Philadelphia by doing that. 

In March, 1888, began the building of the station building. 
After the foundations were pretty well finished, I was called up by the 
Board of Directors one day, and instead of going ahead as I had antici¬ 
pated and completing the station as it stands here now, I was told that 
they had been conferring on the matter, and they had decided'that they 
would build a half station. They would build half and see what I could 
do with it, and if it was all right, they would build the whole. They did 
this for purely financial reasons. They professed to have no idea of the 
engineering construction and considerations that came in. The result was 
we built a station, those of you who have been here for some time know, 
that had a wooden roof about half the height of the present one, and out 
of that stuck the iron smokestacks and the exhaust pipes, and you all 
know too, that when we got to going in the evening, everything in the 
neighborhood was going. All the windows and buildings were dancing 
jigs. The reason for that was a very peculiar phenomenon and one I 
had never come in contact with before in my life. 

In arranging the foundations, it was my determination to have no 
vibration through them. It never occurred to me that the vibrations of 
the atmosphere would shake windows and doors and buildings; but we 
soon found with our 36 inch exhaust pipes, the air above us was shaking 
like a bowl full of jelly, and if the wind blew from the south or southwest, 
the boarders of the Continental Hotel had a sort of shivaree played on their 


120 



windows all night long, and the proprietor was over to see me next day 
But it did not make much difference which way it blew ; we had a ram¬ 
shackle old building next to us called the Irving House that was always 
going. They threatened to sue us, and we effected a compromise on my 
solemn assertion to the Board of Directors that, if they would let me 
build this station up, they would have no trouble with atmospheric vibra¬ 
tions ; and now it is hardly perceptible. 

While this was going on, and within a ver}^ brief period after the 
Board of Directors had cut me down with the remark and order that 
we would not build but a half station, the New York people became 
vastly interested. We had departed from their counsels. Instead 
of putting in little bits of dynamos and rows of armature shafts 
against each other, I had put in No. 6o’s, twice as big, and instead of 
fixing everything so you could not get an armature out, as they have in 
New York to-day ; we got them up so you could swing an armature out. 
Then we had our dynamos closer together; our engines were simply 
very broad shouldered dwarfs, specially redesigned by Armington & Sims 
according to dimensions prescribed by myself. In everything we had 
enormously increased the power and size and the steam pressures. They 
were confident in New York—the authorities—that this station could not 
even begin to operate, much less be operated after it was fairly under 
way, at a commercial profit. There arose a tremendous rumpus over the 
thing, and they went to Edison, and a sort of court of inquiry w r as held 
at Edison’s laboratory in Orange, New Jersey. We were all convened to¬ 
gether in his beautiful laboratory there, and the whole matter was taken 
up with Edison wearing just as judicial an expression on his face as he 
could get on, and everybody stating their reasons and facts. As a result 
of this careful inquiry, Mr. Edison, who had hitherto taken no part in it, 
decided favorably to the Philadelphia Edison Company’s designs, stat¬ 
ing that they w T ere much better than the New York designs, and would 
yield 33 per cent, more return for the same expenditure of money. He 
wrote this out in his own handwriting (exhibiting a framed piece of paper) 
and I picked it up as I left the room, and brought it on to Philadelphia 
and had it framed, thinking that Mr. Edison’s autograph, and particu¬ 
larly a little writing in his own hand, would be very valuable as a pos¬ 
session some day, particularly bearing on my own engineering work. 

So the station was not stopped. They fully intended to stop the 
building of this station. 

Matters went on rather smoothly after that until the question came 
up of boilers. Amongst the various bids was one of Abendroth & Root 
Manufacturing Co. of New York City. It was a very attractive bid. It 
was attractive first of all because it was much lower than any of the 
others. Next, they promised what seemed hard to get in water tube on 
steam boilers—great flexibility. The boiler was so flexible in its con¬ 
struction that it would yield to all temperature strains, and if you found 
it necessary to fire up the boiler and get steam in 15 minutes—the Babcock 
and Wilcox might break, but this boiler would theoretically act like a 
charm. 


I 21 


The first battery of boilers which they put in for us was designed by 
the Root People—the people under Root, but he died and a new engin¬ 
eer was put in, and he decided that he not only w r ould have what old Mr. 
Root had done, but a vastly stronger boiler. In the meantime, the first bat¬ 
teryhaving worked to tolerable satisfaction weordered three more batteries, 
one after the other in quick succession. Business came to us far more 
rapidly than we had any hope of finding it. These boilers had 
strength. They were made so strong and stiff, and the bolts were bound 
so tightly, and everything was so clamped that every time the slightest 
movement occurred either a bolt had to break or a bend had to be crush¬ 
ed, and the result was, as each had 27,000 pounds of water in it, that the 
hot scalding water and steam were thrown out under a pressure of 135 
pounds to the square inch, and I am very sorry to say sometimes resulting 
in serious injury, and in fact in the death of one of the men. 

There was no help for it apparently. Your engineer (myself) pio- 
tested against payment for those batteries of boilers unavailingly. The 
contractor had assured the then president that it was a case of bad temper 
—the worst kind of bad temper on the part of the engineer. He assured 
him, moreover, that the local agent had confidently assured him that 
Professor Marks was a dangerous man, that he did not dare to go into 
that station, and he could bring the agent before the board, and have him 
swear to that, and he did bring him before the board and had him swear 
to it,—because I had talked to that gentleman and told him what I 
thought of him,—that I was in such a frame of mind, that his life was 
not safe,—and it ought not to have been, either ! The President, on that 
assertion, paid for those boilers, whereupon Mr. Abendroth promptly 
withdrew all his men, carrying the money with him. 

Then came a period when the city authorities interferred and threat¬ 
ened to shut down the station, in which case the investment of about a 
million dollars of our board and half a million on the part of other in¬ 
vestors, would have gone for naught. There was nothing for it but, re¬ 
gardless of the present danger of anything happening to these boilers 
(that were to yield to temperature strains,) to remedy their defects. And 
I want to speak right now of the debt of gratitude which this company 
owes and the high esteem in which it holds the men who risked their 
lives in this work—Livingston, Organ and Joyce. They took this work. 
It was not such work that happens in the army, where a man is shot and 
that is the end of him, and where a battle happens occasionally. Day 
in and day out they stood to this work and did it systematically and cool¬ 
ly, facing the risk of being scalded to death. I do not think you will find 
braver men anywhere. 

However, that was finished finally, and we have a big suit against 
Abendroth and Root, and we hope to get a lot of money for we have sued 
them for $34,500., and the jingle of the dollars in our stockholders poc¬ 
kets, will go a little ways towards making them satisfied. 

After these difficulties had been conquered, it was much plainer sail¬ 
ing. We began to prosper greatly. The president of the company went 
over one day to New York City, while the profits were continually in- 


122 





creasing here, and came back with a modified form of contract with the 
New York Company, which showed on the next million dollars which 
they had decided to put in, a clear saving of $27=5,000. The board receiv¬ 
ed the announcement in silence—they gasped—and one member of the 
board asked if there was any room to make any more. You can imagine 
the disappointment of the president. He thought somebody was going 
to say something complimentary. However, the modifications of the 
contract having been attained, the profits of the station being assured, it 
was decided to issue more stock and complete the station. The work on 
that was begun about two years ago, and you are sitting now at a height 
of about 130 feet above the pavement, with 800,000 pounds of coal im¬ 
mediately south of you, upborne on the foundations which I have de¬ 
scribed to you. I do not wish you to be frightened at all, but I wish to 
call your attention to the fact that if that engineering work and bricklay¬ 
ing and iron work of the whole station carrying these enormous loads 
had not been done upon honor and conscientiously, the weight and vibra¬ 
tions w r ould cause the floors to sink and we would be one undistinguish- 
able mass of boilers of dynamos and of engines, perhaps spreading over 
a large area, and to adjoining houses. So that you can have some con¬ 
ception of what boldness has been .shown in building up this station to 
carry 150,000 lights A single mistake, and the engineer in charge is 
shown up, and he is the only one to blame. As long as the station goes 
along beautifully, the board says “See whatw T e have done”. But if any¬ 
thing goes wrong, it was the engineer—the President. 

The station was completed, and with the completion of the station, 
came a period when what had long been in my mind was practicable. I 
had always felt that there were two forms of government, which were more 
or less successful or equally successful, if carried out properly. The first 
form of government is to find an absolute despot, who knows the busi¬ 
ness from end to end ; who is expected to go into everything and to look 
into everything ; with that, as long as he lives and has his health, almost 
any concern will do very well. The second form of government, and to 
me far the preferable one, is more or less of a republican form. In order 
to attain to this, a Board of Control was established here—a Board of Con¬ 
trol consisting of the heads of departments. The object of this Board 
of Control was primarily to create a body of men who, while they were 
specialists each in his own department, and expected to attend thorough¬ 
ly to it, at the same time would, by contact with the heads of the other 
departments, get a good general idea of the whole business You see at 
once then, that instead of the corporation being dependent for its pros¬ 
perity, on a single man, who is supposed to know it all, it has a body of 
men, each one of whom is supposed to be easily first in his own depart¬ 
ment, and to gain by degrees a general knowledge of the affairs of the 
-whole concern. 

In addition to that, where men increase to the numbers that they do 
in all of these large corporations, it is impossible for any single individ¬ 
ual to be around—to become personally acquainted with every man. He 
can talk to them, but the best talker is generally the worst worker. The 


123 



only way to know a man, is to spend time enough to see how he does his 
work, and the only man who really knows how much a man is worth, is 
the head of the department for whom he does work directly. It is pos¬ 
sible that a head of a department—we are all frail—possibly may take a 
prejudice against a man. A man may do his work splendidly, and yet be 
personally a disagreeable man. If, in dealing with that man, the ques¬ 
tions of his promotion, of his discharge, of his rate of pay, are taken up 
and discussed calmly by a board of—say half a dozen—it is a probable 
that, in the course of that discussion, if they will take pains enough, that 
the real facts will come out in the case of the individual, and that he will 
have nearly accurate justice done to him without any prejudice entering 
into the decision. I am glad to say that our Board of Control, which has 
been working for a year, has on one occasion corrected the president and 
he has accepted their correction. He was a little too quick about some¬ 
thing he did and he took it back, when the board investigated it, and I 
know that they have corrected each other in many points, and I think 
that the men realize that, in a judicial body of that sort, though you may 
not have a perfect, yet there is a very fair guarantee of justice between 
them, and if the head drops out, the value of the stock of the corpora¬ 
tion does not at once depreciate, for the very good reason that the stock¬ 
holders realize that there is a body of men there, generally informed 
practically capable of carrying on the work. 

Now referring to another point, and one which you have not been 
thrown in contact with at all—the politics of the Edison Company. You 
see that I am taking you into my confidence pretty deeply to-night. 
When this company was first organized, it applied for a license or a priv¬ 
ilege to underlay the streets of the city of Philadelphia with its conduc¬ 
tors. It employed counsel for the purpose of going before the proper 
authorities connected with the city councils, and he tells me he went be¬ 
fore the city councils committee eighteen times, and every time was met 
by excuse after excuse, reason after reason, and any reason and every 
reason but the true one, for not granting the privilege to the Edison Com¬ 
pany. Finally, a company called the Penn Company was organized. It 
was organized over in New Jersey, where nobody could investigate them. 
You have heard about them in the newspapers probably. And this Penn 
Company, which had not a dollar of money, w^as granted the privilege of 
underlaying the streets of Philadelphia. It had, however, a million of 
dollars of stock, which was held amongst politicians ; and the Edison 
Company was forced to lease the right of underlaying the streets of Phil¬ 
adelphia from the Penn Company, though the streets were not owned by 
the Penn Company but by the citizens ; and we are still forced to pay the 
Penn Company for the streets, and the privilege of doing our own work 
there at our own expense. 

While we have been going on this way, we have been applying for 
the privilege of underlaying the streets in our own name. We have little 
parts all over Philadelphia—on Spruce street, Arch street, Third street, 
and a half dozen different places where the Edison Company can lay tubes 
in its own name, but, in the streets around this station, the Penn Com- 


I24 


pany stills holds the right to underlay the streets of Philadelphia. We 
cannot get at our own tubes ; and our only help was to become in part 
at least a possessor of the Penn Company, and this is the way we are sit¬ 
uated as to leases. We are really the only people that are leasing any- 
thing from the Penn Company. 

We have to-day a bill in councils. Any of } r ou who read the news¬ 
papers, political part of them, will see all sorts of editorials ; you will 
hear of this snake and that snake to be killed ; you will see pictures of 
boa-constrictors crawling into the City Hall with the Edison light on their 
tails. Eet me assure you of one thing. If there was a job there—if the 
city councils were paid—nothing would be easier than the passage of a 
bill in favor of the Edison Company. The newspapers, with a few ex¬ 
ceptions, are even more venal than many of the councilmen—the news¬ 
papers would not indulge in editorials about snakes and things—the bill 
would go through. I say this much to you, Decause you no doubt have 
been all of you very much interested indeed, at the horrible character 
which has been given to the Edison Company in a political way. If it 
really was what it is represented to be, it would not have any trouble at 
all. The newspapers would appeal to the councilmen to pass the bill, 
and it would be passed without a word.* I see my time is up, and thank 
you all for your kind attention. 


*The Edison Bill was finally passed and signed by the Mayor 
April ist, 1895. 























































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